


Since First I Saw Your Face

by Stavia_Scott_Grayson



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: 1884, A Cold Case, A New Acquaintance, Abduction, Antwerp, Aschenbrandt, Beryl Coronet, Books, Character Development, Christmas, Cocaine, Cocaine: Freud, Damon and Pythias, Diamonds, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Freeform, Dr John Burns-Gibson, Dublin Jack, Dvorak, Dynamite and Debris, Edward Carpenter, Eventual Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Experiments, Felony Trials, Friends to Lovers, Gladstone and Blackmail, Gregson and Baynes, Gustavus Cornwall, Hanging Day at the Royal Academy, Havelock Ellis, Holiday in Sussex, Holmes' childhood, Irregulars and assorted Street Urchins, John 'Babbacombe' Lee, John Addington Symonds, Johnlock - Freeform, Koller, M/M, Mycroft, Nikolai Tchaikovsky, POV Sherlock Holmes, Percival Chubb, Persian Journeys, Pining, Poor Lestrade, Resolved sexual and romantic tension - eventually, Shinwell Johnson - Freeform, Sussex, The Beekeeper's Manual, The Clan-na-Gael Bomb, The Criminal Law Amendment Bill, The Dublin Castle Scandals, The Durham Nullity Case, The Dynamite Conspiracy, The Fellowship of the New Life, The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, The Mikado - Freeform, The Musgrave Ritual, The Mysterious Case of the Wimbledon Poisoning, The Russian Crisis, The Second Stain, The Speckled Band, The Yalding Murder, The beginnings of Blackmail, Turkish Baths, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Victorian Attitudes, Victorian Johnlock - Freeform, Victorian Sherlock Holmes, Vienna, Vin Mariani, Wagner, Wisteria Lodge, shooting practice, the orient express
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-28 10:01:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 285,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8441374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stavia_Scott_Grayson/pseuds/Stavia_Scott_Grayson
Summary: During the Great Hiatus, Holmes, studying in Tibet, reflects on his first meeting with Dr John Watson.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As I've been asked for sources on some of this, I'll put any info on the Victoriana under the tag #Since_First_I_Saw_Your_Face on my @artemisastarte tumblr.
> 
> Feel free to ask questions!

**Since First I Saw Your Face ******

_Since first I saw your face I resolved, to honour and renown ye,_  
_If now I be disdained, I wish my heart had never known ye._  
_What I that loved and you that liked, shall we begin to wrangle? ___  
_No, no, no, my heart is fast, and cannot disentangle. _ _  
_(Anonymous, 1607)____

**Gan-den Monastery, Tibet.**

**Holmes sits cross-legged on his narrow bed. Beside him, a bowl of tea grows cold. He can hear the shuffle of bare feet, cattle lowing, bells calling the hour and the trickle of streams. He looks out of the window to where mountains pierce the sky, then bends to his task again. The iron pen nib scratches against rough paper. ‘Watson,’ he murmurs, passing a hand over his eyes. ‘Watson. John. My dear John.’ ******

I had been working for some months before I succeeded in perfecting the formula: a few crystals of sodium, not potassium, chloride, and a quantity of glacial acetic acid proving to be the correct combination. Pyridine I had tried, of course, instead of the acetic acid, but it was less reliable, and only the most reliable of tests would do for me. It was important, too, that the test proved the presence of only human, not animal, haemoglobin. As I watched the reaction occur for the fourth time that morning, my mind was suffused by the keenest of pleasures: a pure, a delicate, mental, nay, cerebral, joy. A joy which, I believed, would always surpass in quality the lesser joys of the flesh in just such a measure as the tone of my own violin, its quivering strings eloquent in their passion, would surpass the discordant scrapings of the street fiddlers of London.

Steps roused me from my happy contemplation. Two people. One was Stamford, my colleague, a rotund, inoffensive man, much attached to the pleasures of the table, although not yet prey to the cold sensuality of the glutton. The other . . . a smaller man than I, the length of his stride told me, stepping more heavily to one side than the other. The hint of a drag in a militarily precise pace: wounded on the right, high on the limb. A drift of gun-oil tickled my nostrils: gun cleaned recently. Too recently. Too often? Army man, invalided out. Smoked: ships’ tobacco. Cologne: a Palmerston Bouquet, its top notes of bergamot and cardamom muted now to spiced wood. Myself, I favoured Truefitt and Hill’s Imperial, a more delicate citrus fragrance. A green, floral indulgence, almost a weakness.

Why was he here? Of course - I had mentioned needing a room mate to Stamford. Dangerous, but I was confident of my ability to hide my own inversion if whoever shared my living quarters proved not of my kin. And sharing was a necessity, since I could not afford to live on my own. I required little in terms of food - but quiet decency of habitation, clean linen, the purifying Turkish bath, tobacco, my chemicals and the delights of music were essential, though costly, and my practice not yet sufficiently advanced to afford them as I wished. I had hoped Stamford would have taken the hint – a meek companion who could, for the most part, have been ignored – but it seemed he had chosen to bring this fellow in instead. Perhaps he feared being a subject for my experiments: I am certain that he thought me cold-blooded, since the occasion of the corpse and the riding crop. He had expressed himself with some vigour on the subject, absurdly tender-hearted on behalf of a carcase that ‘rolled round in earth’s diurnal course’ neither saw nor heard the stripes I inflicted. I myself would not object if after death my body furnished evidence to trap a murderer, so what cause had Stamford then to complain? But an army man who was also a doctor should be less qualmish. Testing him would be wise, however, before committing myself to shared accommodation.

*****

I feigned cordiality before the stranger, although my excitement – that test, what a test! It would place my name securely in the annals of forensic science! – was real. I compelled myself to laugh, to take him by the coat sleeve and force him to observe my demonstration. He was not repelled. He was interested. He met my enthusiasm with warmth, his blue eyes (very dark blue: the irides displaying a brown central ring which darkened the whole aspect of the eye) brightening. He had been in Afghanistan, as I easily perceived from my rapid accumulation of data, wounded in the left shoulder, as well as the leg, then laid low by some tropical illness: an enteric fever, no doubt, for he was sallow under his tan, and painfully thin. His amazement at my deductions was gratifying, and his responses to my enumeration of my faults- of all of my faults save that most grave – was measured and even kind. For his own, I quibbled only at the bull pup, until he smiled and told me it was but a metaphor for his quick temper, not a canine companion in truth. It pleased me greatly to hear that he liked music: music has power to friend the friendless.

He would be safe, I decided, as we shook hands, and planned our rencontre in Baker Street. He had not blinked when I modulated my voice to a higher register, nor frowned at my childish glee over the experiment. He had not balked at my theatrical little bow, my languidly elegant hands. He had shown no recognisance at all of those subtle gestural flourishes, the coded glances, covert phrases, through which one invert knows another. And though he wore a red pocket square, matching mine, it was plain that the colour was of no significance to him. He was innocent, placidly unaware of my vile nature as he stood there, timid hope in his blue (night-blue) eyes. I pitied him then, seeing how poor he was, how lonely and hopeless, how reduced from the soldier and doctor he had once been, how grateful for the rope I had thrown him. Oh, he had been in deep waters, drowning, or near it. But his mouth had relaxed and his brow smoothed by the time he left me, and I knew that for tonight at least, the gun would not be used.

Later that evening, in my squalid rooms in Montague Street, I ruminated on our meeting. Companionship was always dangerous for my kind. We stood forever on the brink of a precipice, we whose desires were for our own gender, watching with eternal vigilance from the time of our awareness of our wrongness, our abnormality. Some concealed it even from themselves, but I had known my own needs since boyhood, almost as long as Mycroft had known his. Both of us pretended to each other that we did not know, colluding in the unspoken. He sequestered himself amidst the queer members of his queer club, where silence was the order. There, perhaps, he found some measure of freedom, of solace: if he did, I have no doubt that it too was taken in silence. His way was not my way. I could not so expose myself among the men of my own station, neither could I make use of my city’s rough trade: to do either would be to court disaster, and the malevolent attentions of the blackmailer. Instead, I chose other means to compel my desires into subservience, finding that the loose embrace of morphia served me better than my own hand to still my shameful flesh.

I had pitied the poor doctor-surgeon for his loneliness. Perhaps I should have pitied myself.

*****

The rooms in Baker Street were light and airy, with wide windows affording an excellent view of the street. I had wanted him to take the bedchamber on the same level as the drawing room, having watched him halt upstairs, and arrive with his brow tightened with pain. He had refused, mouth shutting like a steel trap.

‘No, Holmes. I am very much the junior partner in this enterprise, in worth, if not in years. I will sleep upstairs, so let there be no more said about it. It’s enough of a boon to be here at all. Let be, now, there’s a good fellow, and say no more. I shall be comfortable enough, and besides, you need more room than I do.’

It was true that his belongings could have fitted entirely into the two smallest of my many valises. I confess to being something of a dandy after all, a dandy with a regrettable penchant for the finest of woollens, and the caress of silk. He, by contrast, had little, and all of the plainest, his linen neat and of good quality, but sadly worn, and his overcoat a threadbare apology that would certainly not serve the winter. It was true he could fit all his possessions into the slip of a room upstairs. But it was not that that removed him from the level nearest to the street, nearest to me, and to our landlady down below. It was not until the third night that I heard him scream in his sleep, and not until a week later that I dared to climb the stairs, barefoot in the dark, and listen outside his closed door to the strangled, terrified weeping that succeeded the screams. He’d told me that his nerves wouldn’t stand a row, and they would not, least of all one of his own mind’s making. Every morning, Mrs Hudson informed me that he came late to breakfast, weary and shadowed, before trifling with toast, taking great draughts of tea, as if it were some sovereign panacea, and retreating to his chair to drowse away the day. He’d asked, apologetically, for the simplest and plainest of food to be provided, and knowing that enteric fever led to months of unpleasant intestinal sequelae, I had so arranged it with Mrs Hudson.

‘The poor young doctor,’ she said to me compassionately, as I arrived home one brisk morning after an early walk. ‘He’s not eaten enough to keep a bird alive, not yesterday nor today, and there he is asleep in his chair again, for all the world like a tired child. Should he not see a physician, Mr Holmes, even though he is one himself? And should he not sleep on the sofa, instead of that hard armchair?’

I reassured Mrs Hudson then, informing her fully of the doctor’s condition, and representing to her that it would, in time, yield to the excellence of her food and fine housekeeping, and a good rest. However, I told her, to remove Watson from his armchair was more than my poor power: he curled into its embrace like a hermit crab into its shell (and possessed the same inclination to snap if removed).

‘We could, perhaps, provide a more invalid diet,’ I suggested hesitantly, still unsure of how far this kindly widow would indulge us. ‘I do recollect that when I was ill as a child, there were certain dishes . . . I can offer you a little extra money, if it helps. And perhaps some fruit? Grapes, or oranges?’

‘Bless me, grapes in February,’ she chided me. ‘As well ask for strawberries, Mr Holmes. But oranges there shall certainly be, and a steamed custard. Or a junket, plain, with just a dash of brandy. And a good fowl, with rice.’

‘Whatever you please,’ I took a sovereign from my pocket, not without some selfish reluctance, for it had been reserved for concert tickets. ‘I know nothing of such things. I depend upon you, Mrs Hudson, to lay this out to best advantage for the doctor’s health. And – and do not stint, do not hesitate to ask, for there is more. But simple, delicate food, remember, not to unduly tax his system. He has been very ill, it is clear, and in the service of his country too. He must be kindly treated.'

I would have to raise my fee for the Ricoletti case, just concluded, I reminded myself, as Mrs Hudson patted me on the arm – patted me on the arm, good heavens, when had that last happened to me? – smiled, and retreated into her own room. It was not as if Ricoletti could not pay after all: the man was rich in every material aspect.

*****

My contubernal did enjoy the oranges, and the other delicacies of Mrs Hudson’s providing. His appetite improved, and I found myself making quite a scientific little study of it, charting his healthier colour and mien against the changes in his nutrition. It provided useful evidence for certain private theories of mine about the value of different foods to the system, and I expended more than the one hard-earned sovereign upon it. Mrs Hudson and I grew quite comfortable in our discussions, indeed, we were soon on easy terms. She reminded me somewhat of my first nanny, and Watson clearly felt the same.

‘We do very well here, don’t you find, Holmes?’ he asked me one afternoon. We sat engaged in our separate activities, I in performing Marsh’s test for arsenic on a specimen of stomach tissue from a domestic murder victim, and he in conning over his account book. ‘I cannot think how Mrs Hudson manages to feed us as she does for the amount we pay her. Why, we had fowl last week, and again this. And a surprising quantity of fruit.’

‘I had a fancy for fowl and offered her a little extra to procure one,’ I confessed. I must sound nonchalant, I thought, or he would be onto me, and there would be an ignominious end to our attempts to aid his convalescence. He was a proud man, John Watson, though a poor one. ‘My appetite is capricious sometimes, and I do become so weary of the eternal round of beef and mutton, mutton and beef. Hah, what do you think? Pray, look at this, Watson, it is clear as day. Do you see the arsenic mirror? What a blessing this test has been, for it has at a stroke saved more men from their wives’ evil ministrations than e’er the scold’s bridle did.’

Watson marvelled with me at the silvery black stain on the porcelain before reminding me gently that Mrs Hudson would not thank us for abusing her coffee saucer with arsenic, and, upon my nod, taking it away to clean. ‘For it is still arsenic, Holmes, even if in an oxidative state, and we must not poison our good housekeeper, or ourselves. Nor must we damage her property, for indulgent as she is, I do not think she will thank you for spoiling the set.’ He stood by the fire, into which he had thrown the arsenic-tainted rag, looking at the saucer as he turned it to and fro in his hands. He had small hands for a man, blunt-fingered, dexterous doctor’s hands that would be strong to heal, and kind to soothe. His smile was wry. ‘I do believe my nanny whipped me for breaking just such a saucer as this. It’s strange, the things one remembers about childhood. But Mrs Hudson is far kinder to us waifs and strays than we deserve.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. I did not wish to think about childhood. I turned off the burner, and wiped my hands, moved to the corner, picked up my violin. ‘Would you be averse to some music, Watson? I confess I am melancholy today: this endless rain and wind is tedious in the extreme.’

‘It is.’ He fetched a sigh, deep, catching in his chest. ‘Oh for a dry day, even a cold day, if there could but be a glimmer of sun. No, play on, Holmes, I beg you. I am weary enough myself, with this wretched weather, and the . . .’

He cut himself off, but I knew what he was going to say: the indignities of his personal torments could not be concealed in so confined an apartment. I had seen the cruel colics that racked him, that sent him post-haste to the privy to moan and sweat and writhe, reappearing ashen and apologetic, wrung out. There was no delicacy about the ill that afflicted him. And if I was fastidious, he, the doctor, was even more so. He had warned me of the dangers of sharing living quarters with him, and he kept himself, and our home, scrupulously clean, though it cost him dearly in labour and laundry and carbolic soap.

‘What would you have me play?’ I asked, to change his painful train of thought. ‘Shall it be Mendelssohn again?’ He loved the sweet, sympathetic cadences of the Lieder, stroking a picture into his mind of sun- or candle-lit days of long ago. ‘Or something popular perhaps?’ I bowed a bright snatch of music. ‘Poor, wand’ring one, though thou hast surely strayed, take heart of grace.’ I said softly, thinking to coax him into humour with Sullivan’s airs and Gilbert’s lyrics, but he shook his head, and his eyes were over-bright.

‘Nothing sentimental, for heaven’s sake, Holmes. I am so low, I could weep like a child. Let it be some Caprice or other, that I may lose myself in its brilliance yet not be mournful.’

I played to him for an hour, devising every fantastical tune I could, snatches of Sarasate, Paganini’s pyrotechnics, modulating to soft Mozartian airs as I saw him ease into sleep. Finally, as my violin sang the ‘Deh Vieni’, his account book slipped from nerveless fingers, and he gave the faintest little rumble of a snore. I put up my instrument, and crept away, not omitting to draw his blanket around his shoulders. We should be in Queer Street if he were to take cold: his constitution would not stand it. And that reminded me of his coat, which would certainly need to be changed. I might telegraph Lestrade, I thought, to see if the criminal world had need of cleansing. My store of sovereigns must not be allowed to run low, for I foresaw I would have uses for them.

*****

Lestrade proved amenable, and my purse was comfortably replenished. Case after case – small, but lucrative - did he put my way, especially those cases to which the legal system could not bring justice. An odd man, Lestrade, with his own morality, more concerned with the spirit, than the letter of the law. He had a soft spot for unfortunates for whom there was no legal redress, or none affordable – the wives with abusive husbands, the women whose children were molested by a partner or relation. I liked him better than any at the Yard, a liking he repaid with the work I needed. So the cases came in, and were solved. However, I was obliged to ask Watson to vacate the drawing room when Lestrade or my clients visited, for I had an absurd fear of exposing too much of myself, my work. Too many people in my life had found my deductive skills freakish, unnatural even. I was not so secure in the doctor’s companionship that I wanted him to be one of my critics.

Watson was curious about my dealings, that much was plain, but too well-bred to inquire of me what I did. Though the questions plainly hovered on the tip of his tongue, he refrained from asking them, contenting himself with the occasional quizzical look as he limped up the stairs to his own room. The variety of my acquaintance puzzled him, and well it might, for my clients were drawn from every stratum of society, and might equally grace a princely palace or wash its marble floors. I would, in my turn, have vacated the drawing room for his visitors, had he had any, but not a soul did he see. He was so alone, more friendless even than I. I did once suggest we might invite Stamford to dine, not for any particular liking I had for the man, but to offer Watson some companionship other than mine. He repelled my suggestion with a decided shake of his head, and a frown.

‘I would rather not, Holmes, if it is all the same to you. I am unfit for any company but my own, with this melancholia and the, the intestinal disorder.’

I was ashamed of myself. Had I been pressing my presence on him too much? We had little time together during the day, for I was off working, and he could not leave the house unless the weather was exceptionally clement, but our evenings we mostly spent together, smoking, as I had thought, companionably enough. Often we were silent, unless we discussed the latest political news, and until we sipped a brandy and soda before the fire before parting at ten with a cordial handshake. Had he found me a burden? Would he have preferred solitude? Something of this must have shown on my face, for he smiled at me kindly.

‘I do not count you as company, Holmes. I daresay we will fall out at some point – it would be unnatural if we did not at times, sharing our rooms like this – but I am easy in your presence. With you, I need not fear the pitying glance, or the intrusive question. I enjoy our quiet evenings very much – these rooms are a haven, and your companionship no burden, but a pleasure. I am a lonely man, as no doubt you have deduced. It is a pure solace to me to have such a congenial . . .’ and he hesitated, before uttering the word ‘room-mate’, and adding hastily, ‘and your music is a delight, Holmes, for though you do torture your wretched cat-gut to insanity and beyond when the fit is upon you, you never fail to make amends by playing my many requests without demur.’

‘I am happy to oblige you there,’ I replied, seeking refuge in formality. Had he just expressed a liking for my presence? Tripped over the word ‘friend’ and replaced it with a milder alternative? ‘Although, alas, I must remind you for accuracy’s sake, that most stringed instruments now use gut wound with metal, and were never at any time produced from the intestines of a domestic feline, the guts of ovines being preferred. And your tastes in music correspond well to my own, so it is no hardship, but a pleasure to play for you. In indulging you, I please myself. And I have not often had so appreciative an audience.’

He laughed at my pedantry, and asked then about some technical issue or other to do with the manufacture of strings for instruments. So the subject of company dropped. He raised it again as we parted for the night after one Sunday that had seen hours of restless pain for him, and hours of impotent compassion for me. He suffered with a stoicism that I admired but which fretted my every nerve with wishing he might take something to ameliorate it.

‘Thank you,’ he said, simply, holding out his hand. ‘I have been damnably bad company for you today, Holmes, pray accept my most sincere apologies. I have barely spoken to you, and what words I have found have been brusque and rude.’

‘It is of no moment,’ I replied, taking his hand in mine. ‘I only wish you could be persuaded to take something for the pain. I do so dislike to see you suffer.’

He released my hand and turned away. ‘Perhaps I should suffer from under your eye then. For I cannot take opiates, Holmes, do you understand? When I was – when this –‘ gesturing at shoulder and leg, ‘happened in Afghanistan, I was dosed on opium as an over-indulged child might be stuffed with sugar plums. When I became aware of it, I reduced the dose myself, but it was too late, I had already developed a dependence that it is taking all of my will to combat. I am sure you have heard of such a thing.’

‘I have,’ I replied. He thought me temperate and clean, never suspecting how intimately I knew the dependence to which he referred. ‘I am sorry for it, Watson. Do not seclude yourself; it would make me uncomfortable. Rather we must endeavour to use other means to reduce your discomfort. There is – have you heard of, or experienced, the Turkish bath? The heat is powerful to relax tight muscles and relieve pain. I can recommend it, and would be pleased to accompany you.’

‘I have heard of it, of course. Experienced it, abroad in the army. But I don’t know of any establishment here that I would – do not such places have a poor moral reputation, Holmes?’

I knew what he meant. The Turkish bathhouses – if you were a certain type of man, if you knew what to look for, if you knew of the closeted rooms above them, if you knew what words to say to gain admittance to those rooms, were one of the few safe places where inverts might meet, even exchange pleasure. Yet I had only thought to ease his ills. 

‘Some do,’ I replied. My heart had dropped. I was beginning to like this man: if he proved one of those who demonstrated an ineradicable, visceral hatred towards the notion of inversion, it would be a blow to me. I was not prepared there, as we spoke, to examine how much of a blow it would be, to find him one of those men, for it would be the certain cause of our parting. Innocence, ignorance or indifference, I could support. Hatred might see me ruined, and without my lifting a hand to him. ‘Some do,’ I repeated. ‘But there are many respectable married men who go there, and I do believe the heat would do you good. But if you do not like the risk, I will say no more of it . . .’

‘To be warm,’ he murmured, closing his eyes. ‘To be warm all through, and free of this wretched pain.’ Involuntarily, I uttered an answering murmur of sympathy (for I too felt the cold badly) and his eyes snapped open. ‘Forgive me, Holmes, you must think me a mere miss, whining about my ills. Yes, I will go to the baths with you, for if nothing else it will rid me of the sight of these four walls, of which, grateful as I am for their shelter, I have seen quite enough in recent weeks. And for the risk, no, I do not at all regard it. Only I would like to go somewhere reputable. And clean.’

‘And you do not mind the, the, possibility of – the men who -?’ I had to ask. I could not let it slip, not when it meant so much.

‘Inverts? Good heavens, man, what do you take me for? I am a doctor, for one thing. I have seen all sorts and conditions of men – aye, and women too, Holmes, abroad, and at home. I could tell you stories that would shock your innocent ears. I know there are men who abominate what is called the _peccatum illud horribile _, but I could never see it. For as you must know, it is only a passing tradition or a religion that cries out against it: there have been times and places in history where it was not so unusual, nor indeed a matter for reprobation. Now, do not tell me I have lost your good opinion, I beg you. I understand you to be cold-blooded, or so Stamford tells me, but I do not believe you are so narrow-minded. And you are a good companion to me, who can offer you nothing in return, so I know you capable of compassion.’__

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I am not so narrow-minded.’ I was relieved, but there was sadness with it. This man would not betray me: I had been right to trust him. But despite his tolerance for those afflicted as I, he would never know me. I would grapple him to my soul with hoops of steel as a companion, strive to honour and deserve him as a friend. I knew that now, now I had seen his gentle-heartedness. But for that very reason, I would not let him know me, lest our friendship be utterly changed, and suspicion wake in him. ‘And tomorrow, we will go to the baths in Northumberland Avenue and see if we can relieve your pain.'

‘Thank you,’ he said simply, and offered his hand again. ‘I do thank you, Holmes, for your kindness.’

‘It is nothing,’ I replied, returning his grasp, and so we parted for the night . . .

. . . and oh, but he was beautiful on that morrow, in the glimpses modesty allowed me. Too scarred for some, although to me each cicatrice wrote his history, too thin, too wasted, but a finely made man, compact and neat. His skin flushed deep rose under the _kese _, as it might under the hand of desire; the heat relaxed his taut, tormented muscles. He smiled at the pleasure of being free of pain, and shed five years in as many hours. I was glad that my morphia rendered me unresponsive to his beauty, for otherwise my body would surely have betrayed me.__

*****

There was a pause in the flow of cases, and for a week or more, I heard nothing from Lestrade. The weather cleared for a day, then worsened again, and with it my mood. I wanted to be out, out and doing. I needed action; the charm of the chase. Even if there were no chase, I wanted to be out with Watson.

I had coaxed him from within doors – though he needed little coaxing; an active man when in health, he was wild to be out – on the one sunny morning. I had insisted we take a cab to Primrose Hill, where I knew we would be able to breathe clean air, and although he demurred at the expense, he acquiesced when I reminded him that he had wanted a ramble across the hill, which he would certainly not be fit for if he was jostled along the pavement by every clumsy passer by on the way.

We did not speak much. Once on the hill, he drew breath deep into his lungs, straightened his shoulders, and set off across the grass, leaving me to watch him and wonder. He could not yet walk without a limp (I deduced from the irregularity in his gait that whatever afflicted him must have injured his quadriceps, for he had limited motion in the right knee, exactly as I had observed in the case of the cricketer whom I had cleared of a murder charge on the basis of his irregular footstep) but he went as if his life depended on it. I took a different route, to give him the space he needed, and we met under an oak near the summit. His eyes had been wet, I am sure, but as I joined him, he was smiling.

‘London,’ he said, gesturing at the whole smoky city spread out before us.

‘Indeed,’ I replied, answering the delight in his voice with a smile.

‘I grew up in the country.’

‘North Country.’ And when he glanced at me, ‘A trace remains in your speech. And you told me you’d been in the Fifth Northumberland. The deduction is logical.’ I could see the moment when he decided not to ask me – never had I met a man who so respected my reserve. I would gratify his unspoken curiosity then- a little, a very little.

‘My people are country squires, who hail from the Somerset/Wiltshire border,’ I told him. ‘Also in the country.’

‘But you prefer London.’

‘It does not therefore follow that I dislike the country.’ I saw him shiver. ‘Come Watson, I am finding it too cold to stand about. Will you walk? It is too early for primroses, but there are snowdrops in the rides.’

‘The air strikes chill despite the sun,’ he agreed, and turned towards me. ‘May I offer you an arm, Holmes, if you are cold? Two walk together warmer than one, you know. Unless you do not wish to, of course. It was always our habit at the University: was it not yours?’ he added, quickly, for he must have seen my uncertainty in my face.

‘I do not think I have ever walked thus in my life,’ I replied. ‘To be candid with you, I was a solitary fellow, and did not much regard the other students, nor had they time for me. I was – quite friendless.’

He stood with his arm crooked in invitation, smiling at me with such kindness as I vacillated there, though he shivered all the while in his too-thin coat. I tucked my hand timidly inside his arm, and he placed his other hand over mine to reposition it. ‘There,’ he said, very much in the manner of an uncle or grandfather to a child. ‘That is how it is done, and now let us walk, so you are warmer.’

It took us a little while to learn how to fall into step, for he was shorter than I, and I was shy at first of making use of his arm lest I further mar his uneven gait. He told me then that at the University he had been used to having a man lean on him for the length of a street, and that I was only a fly in comparison, so I was emboldened to hold him somewhat closer, which he seemed to approve. Once our paces suited, we rambled about for half an hour, seeing many snowdrops, for which I cared not a jot, and over which he rhapsodised in true Aesthetic fashion before I feigned fatigue to get him home. He was beginning to look pale under his tan, and I knew that Mrs Hudson would have a good fire and a fine, fat roast duck for our dinner.

He paid for the exercise in aches and pains the next day, but assured me he did not much mind it, which his more cheerful aspect proved. He even came down to breakfast humming, and declaring his willingness to accompany me on any promenade I chose.

‘You must not think me content to spend all my time on the couch,’ he told me. ‘It is only my health that makes me languid and lazy. I was active enough in the army, until this stupid wound laid me low, and I was forced to cosset myself like a valetudinarian of advanced years. I am no Mr Woodhouse, I assure you.’

‘I honour your service, and am grieved for its effects,’ I said, and would have spoken more, had I not feared to wake the demons that tormented him in his sleep. I saw that he was uneasy to talk about it, and cast around to change the subject. Fortunately, I did not understand his allusion, which led to a discussion, over toast and marmalade, of literature. I do not know who was more surprised, I by his extensive knowledge, or he by my ignorance of anything save poetry, and we ended by agreeing that he should read to me on some of our quiet evenings. He had a fine voice, flexible and mellow, a violoncello of a voice. I could lose myself in its music. Mine was a corncrake’s by comparison.

But the weather betrayed us, and was cruel, and for many days after that, he could not leave the house. I had, as I said, no more cases, it was too foul without doors even for me, and my mind began to tear itself to pieces for want of active employment. In such a mood, I could neither speak nor rouse myself to action, but only lie supine on the sofa, while my morphia wove its insidious spell. Even so, I was careful to take only enough to dull my mental pain. He may have suspected me, but he did not know, since I took pains to avoid him seeing my eyes, which would have betrayed my state to a medical man. And so we wore away a weary week together, fit neither for company nor for solitude.

*****

It was the fourth of March, I recall, that set us on the adventure he would later immortalise as ‘A Study in Scarlet’, an adventure which irrevocably changed our association one with another. The day had begun unpropitiously. Watson had come down earlier than usual to breakfast, growling and grumbling after a bad night, a very bear because Mrs Hudson had not his toast and coffee ready. He’d flipped the pages of my magazine petulantly back and forth till I was nigh on screaming with nerves, for I too had slept badly, my dreams haunted by vague, erotic images. I had woken to find that my body had betrayed me as I slept, a thing I abhorred for the loss of control. So when he began to huff over an article, calling it ‘ineffable twaddle’ and ‘rubbish’ I would have inclined to a surly response even had I not written it. I confess also that I was hurt, for I had expended much thought and not a little polishing on the work. I had been nervous in submitting it, knowing how little credence I was given for my skills, and fearing just such a response as it had now garnered – and, sadly, garnered from one to whom I felt kindly, whose good opinion I coveted.

I tried to remain calm, despite my wounded feelings, and to explain what it was I did, and how, but I grew angry all over again when he referenced that charlatan Dupin, and the bungler, Lecocq. Then he became annoyed with me in his turn, for my lack of respect for characters he liked, and my abounding conceit, and we would have been well on our way to as pretty a childish scrap as ever I had indulged in, had it not been for the fortunate arrival of a retired Sergeant of Marines summoning me to Brixton. His advent enabled me to astound my sceptical Watson, which improved my mood more than a little.

For then – ah, then - he called my deduction ‘wonderful,’ and I was lost to his praise. He was so sincere with it, so penitent that he had doubted me, and so manifestly eager for more, that although I feigned disinterest in the case to whet his appetite, I would not have turned it down for the world. I am sure he did not know how his eyes pleaded with me to take him along, but I was forcibly reminded of a dog I had as a child that would give me just such beseeching glances.

We went, and there was the mystery, that was no mystery to me, laid plain before us. He watched, rapt, as I made a little performance of my deductions, and I found myself playing to him, rather than to Gregson and Lestrade. I showed away like any mountebank, in a word, breathing in the rich oxygen of his approbation until I was dizzy with it. It was not until we were in a cab on the way to interview Rance that I recollected I had better not show him all my secrets, lest he weary of me, and think me less than he did now. 

His praise, his honest amazement were inexpressibly sweet to me, who had starved and thirsted for a kind word for years. He might have been charmed by my intellect, but I - I was limed fast like any thrush taken in its home bush, snared by his smile and his look of awe. Even as I sat listening to Norman-Neruda play arrangements of Chopin’s Nocturnes that afternoon, my inner eye traced again and again his air of wonder, my inner ear heard, above the pure and sonorous violin, his spontaneous praise.

I had expected him to be dining on my return, for I was unconscionably late, but he had waited for me, and was eager to hear of my doings. He was not looking himself, which did not surprise me, for case-hardened as a soldier and a doctor might be, there is a difference between death in the line of duty, or in a hospital bed, and cold-blooded murder. I said as much to him, and he nodded, then changed the subject back to the case. I was uneasy discussing it with him, for he was flushed, and, I thought, fevered, but he would not retire when I had to go out again to follow the old woman. I left him puffing meditatively at his pipe, and reading a well-worn copy of La Vie de Bohème. He was still there when I returned with nothing but a tale of deception and failure to offer him, and after an explanation of my stupidity, I packed him off to bed in short order. He looked done up, and I knew there would be nightmares waiting for him, so I stayed downstairs, smoking. I could no longer bear to hear him in distress, as he had been for so many nights, and this night I was determined to wake him, try to bring him some ease.

His dreams came in the darkest hour, before dawn. I poured brandy into two glasses, and stole upstairs with them, setting them, and my candle, down outside his door. He was murmuring, confused, agitated, the words indecipherable, a broken flurry of pleading, imprecatory snarls, moaning. I knocked, thrice, but there was no answer, so I entered. He was thrashing in a loose cocoon of sheet and blanket, his face flushed, sweat pouring from his brow. His eyes were open, but he was asleep and dreaming hard, still moaning pleas and curses.

‘Watson, rouse up, man.’ I called. I did not seek to woo him from sleep, but command him, and it might have gone well, for he stilled a moment, had I not made the mistake of reaching for his shoulder. I meant only a consoling grasp, but his dream-blurred mind interpreted it as a threat, and he sprang at me, his hands going to my throat. I warded him off, then submitted as he grappled me, knowing I was in grave danger if he thought me a threat, for weak as he was, he was trained to kill. I continued to call him, more softly now, to try and break his dream.

‘Watson, wake, it’s Holmes. You were dreaming, old fellow, there’s no threat. Wake, Watson, it’s a dream. I only sought to wake you, come now, Watson, it’s only I. Wake up, Watson, you were dreaming.’

I knew the instant he became aware, for he released me, and flung away, his breath heaving. He cowered there, his hands to his face, and I was broken, for I had harmed where I sought to heal, and all because of my own stupidity. I scrambled off the bed, went to the door to retrieve the brandy glasses, and approached him slowly, giving him time to recover a little.

‘I’m terribly sorry, Watson, believe me. I only sought to wake you, you sounded so distressed in your dream. I brought brandy; will you take a glass? And forgive me my clumsiness, I meant only to rouse you, since you sounded in such pain. I sleep badly and have nightmares myself, so I know what it is like to be caught in their toils,’ I added, for I did not want him to think he was alone in his torments. ‘Watson, do take the brandy, old fellow. I am so terribly sorry. Let me give you this, and I’ll leave you alone. We need never mention it, and I won’t ever again try to wake you.’

He held out a shaking hand, his face still turned from me, and I placed the glass within it. He trembled so much that I had to put my hand over his and guide it to his lips. I could not think what to say to the man – I had meant so well, and done so ill. Once he was steadier, and sipping the brandy, I would have released his hand, and moved away, but he detained me.

‘Sit down,’ he said, motioning to the chair. ‘Wait, Holmes. Do not go.’

I did as he commanded, taking my own brandy gratefully. I was shaken too. We were silent together for some time, and I was glad of the friendly dark. I did not want to watch him in his distress, for he would not want me to, nor for him to see me in mine.

He drew breath eventually, to speak, and I quivered, anticipating his rebuke.

‘When you wake me, Holmes, you must never touch me.’

I cringed, inwardly.

‘I have been a soldier, Holmes. I have killed in the line of duty, my dreams are of killing, and of death, and if I perceive you as a threat, I may well kill you. It is well for you that you had the sense not to resist me, and that you continued to speak to me, for if you had resisted, if you had been silent, my dreaming mind would have known you only as an enemy, and I would have harmed you, perhaps even killed you. I understand that you did not know this, and I understand that you meant well,’ he gestured with the glass, ‘but you put yourself in grave danger through your ignorance, and you endangered me also. Do not do so again.’

I had not been so magisterially rebuked since I was a child at school. He had such authority in his voice, despite his dishevelled hair and attire and his reddened eyes, and the reek of fear-sweat in the room. I knew he was right. He was combat-trained, a true killer, and I, despite my baritsu training, was not. Could I have fought back anyway, knowing he was not aware? Of course I could not: what outcome would there have been? Two broken, bloodied men, and a murder charge perhaps?

‘I am sorry,’ I murmured again. ‘I am so sorry, Watson, pray forgive me. It was – it was foolish of me, a foolish act.’

‘It was a kind act,’ he corrected me, and I dared to look at him. He was smiling, an odd little quirk of the lips. ‘It was a kind act, Holmes, and you meant to help me. I am grateful for the thought, and even for the act, since no true harm has come of it, and you have shaken me from my nightmare. But one thing we learned in the army, and the one thing you could not have known, is that if you have to wake a mate from bad dreams, you must not touch him, but stand apart, and call him, call patiently and low, till your voice penetrates the mist in his mind. I have woken a man many times in such a way, aye, and been woken too. We know how to deal with such things: we are all in barracks together, and one man’s dreams cannot ruin the sleep of all. But we never touch, for fear of just what happened between us. The mind in a dream seems to see the touch as a threat, and then there is more fear, and terror makes us cruel to the friend who would help us.’

‘I am sorry,’ I said again. ‘Forgive me, Watson, I did not know.’

‘I did not know you would think kindly enough of me to try to wake me,’ he replied. ‘Or I would have told you the proper means. Forgive me in my turn for hurting you, Holmes, for I am certain I did. Have I bruised you badly? I am a brute, if so, when you meant to be good to me.’

‘Perhaps only my _amour propre _,’ I murmured. ‘I do so dislike not knowing. Any bruises I have are a just punishment, I think.’__

‘I shall salve any that need it in the morning,’ he replied. ‘Holmes, you must not refine too much upon your mistake. As I said, you meant kindly. And now you have woken me, I will be dream-free for the rest of the night. That is how it goes, and so I do thank you. I have often and often wished I was back in barracks for a friend’s voice to call me back to myself,’ and now his tone was wistful, the loneliness clear through it. ‘I am grateful for your thoughtfulness, and for this excellent brandy. Now do go to your own bed, like a good chap, and get some rest yourself. It was a long day, and we are not finished with your study of murder’s scarlet thread after all. I look forward to seeing you upon the trail again tomorrow. Or today, rather, when we take it up again. Come, take heart. There is no damage done, and you will know how to, next time you think to wake me. Indeed, I would be so grateful for that friendly office, Holmes, if you feel you could bring yourself to it. My dreams are cruel, and I am desperately weary of them.’

I stood, and found that he was holding out his hand to me. I approached, eyes downcast, and grasped his hand, and he pressed mine kindly between both of his.

‘Thank you, I shall sleep sound now,’ he said, and so I left him, stumbling from his room with my mind in turmoil.

*****

By the next night I had turned Jefferson Hope in to Lestrade and Gregson, both of them relieved to have solved the double murder, but piqued in their pride that it was I who had solved it. It mattered little to me – the charm lay in the solving, not in the plaudits of commonplace men after it. The detectives might have the credit of it with my goodwill: I had won the only good opinion I cared about.

I had felt a little shy with Watson the morning after our unexpected tussle, wondering if he would resent me for having seen him at a disadvantage, as I would have resented him seeing my weakness if our situations had been reversed. But he had come to breakfast in good spirits, with a fresher colour, and more spark in his eye, and had patted me on the shoulder as he went to his seat.

‘I must thank you again, Holmes,’ he observed, after attacking his eggs and toast with unusual appetite. ‘I slept well after you left me, better than I have for many a night. But how are you? Turn your face to the light, will you?’

I did as requested. I had a bruise on one cheekbone (and others elsewhere that I was certainly not prepared to reveal) and he tutted over it.

‘Stay like that,’ he directed, and dropping his napkin, he came round the table to me, pulling a small pot from his pocket.

‘We shall have some arnica on that contusion,’ he told me. ‘Hold still now, Holmes.’

I could do nothing else, for I was frozen there as he brushed the ointment over my bruised cheek. His hands were warm, and his touch gentle, though impersonal as a doctor’s should be. I closed my eyes, and tried not to shiver.

‘There,’ he said, wiping his fingers on his pocket handkerchief. ‘And I am very sorry for hurting you, my dear chap. Still, this will help. It’s an amazing thing, arnica: a small flower, but so potent to reduce a haematoma.’

Then in came the Irregulars, followed by Gregson, and then Lestrade, and then, after we had ascertained that the pills – or at least one of the pills - was deadly by putting Mrs Hudson’s poor terrier out of its misery, came our quarry, Jefferson Hope himself, upon whom I clapped a very pretty little pair of manacles. Throughout all of it, Watson watched me as though I were able to call the stars down from the heavens or turn back the tides. And I watched him, far more distracted from my deductions than I had ever been by any human being. I saw the concern on his face when he noticed the bruise under Billy Wiggins’ eye. A damp napkin removed the layer of street grime, and the little pot of arnica came into requisition again. His hands were gentle on the poor little terrier: even a dog warranted his tenderness. For all that Hope was twice a murderer, Watson compassionated the wretched man, enquired after his pain, left him with one last, lingering serious look, as who should say ‘this night thy soul shall be required of thee.’ He was a doctor clear through, was Watson: it was in his grain. That and a killer, for although he gave the credit to Gregson and Lestrade in his account of the matter, it had been he who had finally subdued Hope with some army-taught trick before doctoring him. The paradoxical nature of the man bewitched me: I could not throw off his spell.

The following night, after Hope’s death, we sat together after our supper. The cloth had been drawn, and the tantalus sat on the table together with the day’s Echo. He asked me about my method of reasoning, and I explained my analytical path to him; indeed it was on that evening that the idea of putting my methods in writing first occurred to me. He listened closely, questioned me with an alert intelligence. Again, he called me wonderful, and again I wondered that he should find me so. He sat easy in his chair, one hand playing with his pocket watch, which he turned and twisted, watching the candlelight dance on it. The same candlelight gilded his hair, bringing out its mingled threads of gold and brown – and the odd silver too, if truth be told, for his army years and his suffering had greyed his temples. Candlelight smoothed the contours of his face and wrists, softening the sharp bones that still wanted healthy flesh to cover them. It darkened his eyes, eyes now fixed intently upon me as I spoke, now hidden as his gaze dipped, and he smiled a private, amused little smile.

He was all beautiful as he sat there, unselfconscious in his kindness and strength, the gentle heart of him, and the steel edge. He had stepped into my life, a fragile exhausted wraith of a man, broken – still broken, for his wounds were not of a day’s healing – but strong. He was tender and compassionate, but stern to command. He had taken my citadelled heart by storm, and it had fallen to him without resistance. I loved him. I loved him, I who had never cared for any man save once, and that with only a shadow of what I felt for my Watson. I loved him from that first case we shared together, loved with all that was in me, at once, completely. I loved him so very dearly, and my heart was sore.


	2. Resolved To Honour You

**Since First I Saw Your Face. Part 2: Resolved To Honour You ******

**Gan-den Monastery, Tibet. ******

**The nights are cold, brilliant with stars. Once the little lamps in houses and cells have been extinguished, there is nothing to dull the celestial radiance. Sometimes, Holmes sits out for much of the night, muffled in wool against the frost, and smoking a battered chillum, the harsh tobacco within laced generously with golden-brown charas. Later, much later, as the heavens wheel, some of those same stars will shine on Watson. If Holmes murmurs any message for them to convey in their eternal round, if he whispers a name, it is so low, so private, so quietly desolate, that not even his own ears hear it. ******

March had come in like a lion, bringing the Hope case with it, and went out like one in a series of blustery days, iced by a wind hailing straight from the steppes of Siberia. It sliced through clothing, and restricted Watson to brief sojourns out of doors, from which he returned, blue-lipped and shaking. He was still wearing the threadbare coat, since I had not yet worked out how to replace it without hurting his pride. On the last day of the month, he was in such bad case after his afternoon walk – a solitary walk, for he would not always allow me to accompany him - that I called Mrs Hudson to make up the fire, drew his chair close to it, and ordered hot grog for both of us on the pretext of having a slight sore throat myself. He thanked me, and drank, but it took him a long time to stop shivering, and I could see that he was weary with pain after the cold.

I fidgeted around the room with my papers for a while, glancing across at him at intervals as he warmed his shaking hands on his glass, and wondering what to say to him about the damned coat. I did not realise that I was so transparent, until he heaved a sigh, and motioned to the other chair.

‘Do sit down, for heaven’s sake, Holmes,’ he murmured. ‘You go on like a cat afraid to cross the road between cabs, sometimes. I agree, I was foolish to go outside: the wind is keener than a knife and my coat does not serve its purpose. But I must exercise and fit myself for duty again. I cannot afford to laze around for ever.’

I felt a sudden uncomfortable roiling in my stomach. ‘Fit yourself for duty again?’ I repeated. I probably sounded quite stupid. ‘What do you mean?’

He sighed again.

‘Holmes, I was shot at Maiwand, as I recall telling you. That was in July, last year.’

‘What of it?’ I asked.

‘When I was invalided out, I was given a half-pay pension for nine months, on the proviso that at the end of that time, I would either be fit to return to active duty, or I would have to leave the service: in effect, I was given nine months to improve my health to the point where I might be of use to my country again. Although my pension did not begin until the middle of August – and I was fortunate in that they delayed its commencement for that long or I would be in worse straits than I am now – that nine months will be up by the middle of May. I must then go before a medical board, and either be pronounced fit for duty, or leave. And a man cannot live on nothing. So I cannot wait a more convenient season for exercise; I must try to do what I can now.’

I was silent, aghast. I had no experience of the army, and had not reckoned with even the possibility of losing him. It was true, I recollected, that we had taken the Baker Street rooms for only six months, but I certainly had no thought but that we would renew our lease, and neither, I had thought, had he.

‘I did not take this lease under false pretences,’ he said, stiffly, in response to my silence. ‘The rooms were engaged, if you recall, only for six months. We entered into possession on the thirtieth of January, and I had already taken the precaution of setting enough money aside to account for my rent and living through to the end of July, having hoped to be declared fit, and then delay my return until that date. Or to enable you to stay here on your own, if I were recalled immediately. I can pay my way, Holmes, you have no need to worry.’ He levered himself to his feet, set down his cup decidedly and turned to go. He was frowning, his hands clenched, and the tremor in the left quite visible.

I had not collected my thoughts sufficiently to reply to him, when he turned at the door, and spoke again, his colour heightened, and his voice oddly constricted.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, and it was an entreaty. ‘I – I have not cheated you, Holmes, although I knew that I might have to return to the service before our time was up here. I can pay what is needed so that you do not have to leave, even if I must, at least for the term of our tenure here, although I cannot see my way through to continuing after July. But I was - ’ he swallowed hard, and looked away from me. ‘I perhaps did not – I so much wanted – needed - it has been a very haven here,’ he went on, wistfully, and now he did look up, and his gaze was fond as it dwelt on all the small comforts of our rooms. ‘It has been a _home _, my dear fellow, and you not the least of what has made it so, despite your damned experiments, and explosions.’__

And then he nodded to me once, a curt, formal nod, and left the room.

I did not speak, or follow him, for I had caught the sheen of tears in his eyes. His mouth had tightened, and I saw his shoulders hitch as he retreated. Instead I cursed myself roundly for my stupidity – I, to call myself a detective, and pride myself on my observations, when I had not entirely realised what his poor attire, the careful portioning of his money, and his anxious attention to his account book portended. He had told me he had been a gambler in health, fond of a game of cards, or a flutter on the horses. It followed then, that he had saved little or none of his pay, for he bore no mark of the man lucky in games of chance. I wondered now to what straits he had reduced himself during that period from his landing in England to our meeting. Eleven shillings and sixpence a day – nine months of a pension, paid quarterly in advance, and then nothing, if he were unable to return, for he was too young, and had served for too short a time to receive the army pension for life.

One hundred and forty seven guineas he’d have had, for the nine months, sixteen or so guineas a month, and five months of it possibly spent before I met him. Sixty four guineas at the most for four months, and thirty of them set aside for our six months’ rent and good lodging. Thirty four guineas was all his poor living then, and that for six months, if he wanted to stretch it to July: seven hundred and fourteen bright silver shillings to stretch over one hundred and eighty days. About three shillings and ten-pence ha’penny a day, by rough reckoning . . . Twenty-seven or so shillings a week, and five of them a week at least on his laundry for he was fastidious as a cat. It did not leave much for his _menus plaisirs _, such as they were, nor nearly enough to support the character and living of a gentleman. Moreover that was at my best reckoning, taking into account all variable factors I might deduce. It might even be less: I had not the true means of calculating it. Small wonder then, that his coat was shabby, his linen worn from frequent washing, and his boots needed re-soling. Small wonder that he balked at cab fares, declined invitations to concerts, and smoked the cheapest, rankest ship’s tobacco to be bought. And that half-crown for the Turkish bath – two shillings and sixpence, good heavens, and we’d taken coffee together for a few pence more . . . he’d have had only a few pence left of the day’s allowance.__

And now he had gone alone to his cold little room, whither I dared not follow him, distressed, uncomforted, and thinking that I, perhaps, thought less of him. It was true that we had only engaged the rooms for six months, but I had hoped, I discovered now . . . he had wound himself inextricably into my – life - and my – 

Ah, surely, surely he could not mean to leave me? He could not mean to go back . . .

*****

By the next morning, I was beside myself with anxiety, although, of course, I constrained myself to show nothing. I omitted my usual morning walk to linger at the fire before breakfast, which I had asked Mrs Hudson to put back half an hour, citing Watson’s fatigue as a reason. He had not yet appeared, and I longed for, yet dreaded, his presence.

‘The doctor walked too far on such a cold day,’ Mrs Hudson commented, as she bustled around the room, righting my papers in a way that irritated me intensely. ‘And that coat of his is too thin by half, Mr Holmes, for a man in his state of health.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It is too thin. But I cannot think how to . . .’ I re-arranged the papers she had moved, and frowned as direfully as I could at her. ‘Thank you, Mrs Hudson.’

She dusted around my correspondence on the mantelpiece in silence for a few moments, carefully removing and then replacing my Persian slipper. I refilled my pipe, adjusted the slipper’s position a little to the left, and returned to my chair.

‘I am a widow,’ she observed, after a while, as she retrieved my cigar case from the coal scuttle and laid it on my table.

Good heavens, what need to tell me that? How could it possibly be important?

‘What of it, Mrs Hudson?’ I asked, in no very patient tone. I would have to move that cigar case back again as soon as she had finished.

She looked at me, and again I was forcibly reminded of my first nanny.

‘As a widow,’ she went on, ‘I might be expected to have some of my deceased husband’s clothing remaining in my possession. Had I such garments, among them might be a . . .’

‘A coat!’ I exclaimed, leaping from my chair, ‘A warm overcoat, possibly not entirely new, but bearing few marks of wear. A coat of good heavy wool with perhaps an astrakhan collar: Mrs Hudson, if you had such a coat . . .’

‘I do not, in fact, have such a coat, or indeed any man’s coat,’ she admitted, smiling at me gently. ‘But I do believe I could obtain such a coat. And you may not be aware, Mr Holmes, but sometimes a man might be prevailed upon to accept from an elderly lady – a tearful elderly lady, old enough to be his grandmother - a kindness he could not accept from a man because of his pride.’

I hastened to my desk and scrambled for my pocket book, removing a quantity of sovereigns and pressing them into her hands, for I heard Watson’s step on the stair. ‘Blue, Mrs Hudson,’ I murmured hastily, since it would never do to be caught conspiring with my landlady, ‘I am sure that your late husband’s coat was a very dark blue, was it not? And – forgive me - he dressed above his station, perhaps?’

‘He was always a smartly turned out gentleman,’ she agreed, solemnly. ‘I shall send Janey up directly with your breakfast, gentlemen. Good morning, Dr Watson,’ as he entered the room. ‘I trust you slept well. By the way, your overcoat is sadly splashed with mud, I notice. If you will let me have it, Janey shall dry it, and go over it with spirits of hartshorn and a stiff brush for you, to furbish it up before you wear it again.’

‘Fairly well, I thank you, Mrs Hudson,’ he replied, and moved to hold the door for her as she left the room, ‘And thank you, yes, I would be grateful if you would see to it. That is very kind of you.’

A rapid train of deduction presented me with a picture of Mrs Hudson’s clumsy maid of all work, and the stiff brush, and the threadbare coat . . . and an apologetic Mrs Hudson, and an irate Watson, and . . . oh, the duplicity of woman! What can a man do against it? We are helpless in their toils when they so choose.

‘We are fortunate in our landlady,’ Watson remarked. He filled and lit his pipe, ‘She bore two sons, did you know? The older died at Inkermann, and the younger in the final assault on Sebastopol, in the late conflict in the Crimea. They were young . . . not twenty-one, either of them, poor lads. Holmes, I have seen all too many die as young as they. But I must apologise for leaving you so abruptly last night; it was discourteous of me. And we should perhaps discuss our situation. Pray forgive me for not being entirely open with you. It is not that I do not wish to stay here, it is that I cannot, after July. I must find gainful employment before then or rejoin the army: there is no help for it, I am afraid.

The arrival of breakfast interrupted us, and I made sure that Watson’s plate was well supplied with kedgeree and his coffee cup filled before I spoke. I wanted him to stay with me – would have paid almost any price for him to stay – but I knew that I had to tread carefully with so proud a man.

‘Do you – do you wish to re-join the army?’ I asked, waiting with bated breath for the answer. ‘What would you wish to do if you could?’

‘I had always hoped for a practice of my own,’ he admitted. ‘To set up my plate in a respectable area, and to treat enough of those sufficiently able to pay to enable me to treat the poor, _gratis _. I saw much during my time at Barts, Holmes, that made me understand how sadly the poor, and especially the children of the poor, suffer from lack of the most simple care. If you had seen what I have, not only in the free wards, of which there are too few, but, alas, in the morgue . . . boys, their lungs rotting or their skin cankered from scrofulous ulcers, girls twisted by rickets, dying in childbed too soon. Forgive me, I know polite society does not mention such things. I should perhaps not speak of them to you.'__

‘There is nothing you cannot speak of to me,’ I returned. My hands shook with my need to touch him, to reach out to assure him of understanding, for I too pitied the children. Had I not seen them sold into work little better than slavery, bought body and soul? Those sold for their bodies, both those of my own persuasion, and those not, I pitied above all, for they were often roughly used, and I grieved for their cruel handling as if my own flesh felt it. Had I not my little group of Irregulars, after all, to whom I passed many a shilling for light tasks, my small attempt to offer solace and security? I laid my fork on my plate. ‘There is nothing you cannot speak of to me. You call me innocent, Watson, but I have seen the vilest crimes, as you have seen the direst cruelty. It is a shame, and yes, a sin, that in these times such things are so. But you wished to set up your plate?’ I prompted, for he had fallen into a brown study, and shadows moved behind his eyes.

He smiled, and it was rueful. ‘I had not the money, nor the standing, nor the connexion to buy into a practice, Holmes. It was my plan to go into the army, to cover myself with glory, and to come home with honour, and a modicum of wealth, enough to buy a practice, and a home. And then perhaps . . .’

I saw in his eyes then, what he was too shy to say, that he had, perhaps, thought of a wife, as most men do, and children round his feet. It pierced me through and through that he would never think of me. That I could never . . .

‘And now here I am,’ he went on, forcing his tone to cheerfulness. ‘thrown quite upon the world. My wounds and the fever have put paid to those hopes for a long time, perhaps for ever. I must ‘begin the world again,’ as poor Richard Jarndyce says, and in a house as bleak. If I do re-join the army, I will not be allowed to stay here, and if I do not re-join the army, I can not afford to stay here. I shall try to find some doctoring work, if I am rejected for active service, but it will be years before I can get back to where I was before Maiwand. But do not worry, old fellow, we have some months before us yet. And it will soon be summer, so you may stop fussing over my coat. You are a bit of a dandy, you know, Holmes, and I know I am not nearly smart enough to be seen with such a very elegant fellow. That is why we do not walk together half so often as I would like: it would never do for you to be seen with such a shabby companion, when you have your way to make in the world. Which reminds me, Holmes, should you have any real objection if I were to write you up? What you do is very wonderful, you know, and it must help your practice, for you to be more widely known. And we will let July bring what July brings, and enjoy our companionship here, will we not? The rain is setting in for the day,’ he went on, putting down his napkin, and walking to the window. ‘I do believe not even your criminals will venture out today, so we shall be confined to barracks. I have some small tasks to do, and maybe I will try my hand at writing, but perhaps we might read together later? I shall introduce you to Mr Frank Churchill, who is more of a fine-feathered dandy than you, and in return, will you play for me?’

‘With the greatest of pleasure,’ I replied, and tried to smile at him. ‘But you will stay here, Watson, while you work? Your room is cold, I am sure.’

He hesitated then, and gave a queer, embarrassed little laugh. ‘Very well, Holmes, I will stay in here. But you must not mind me darning my socks, old chap. My orderly, Murray, taught me to do it when we were in Afghanistan, and very useful I have found it since. I know it is not a manly occupation, but needs must in the army, if we have no-one to do it for us. There are many of us who are handy at sewing as any sailor in the navy or any fine, finicking miss at her embroidery, I assure you, and no-one thinks a thing of it. And I was a surgeon, so I must, of course, know how to handle a needle.’

‘Then I will not think a thing of it either,’ I promised. ‘Fetch your needle, Doctor, and I will ring for more coffee, and coal for the fire. I might perhaps attempt to re-order my papers,’ I went on, glancing doubtfully around the room. ‘They appear to have dispersed themselves over a wider area than usual, I am afraid. You are a patient fellow, Watson, to put up with my eccentricities and oddnesses. I am sure I do not know where I would find another such as you to share rooms with.’

But it was not only my rooms I wanted to share with him, it was my all. We spent the most domestic and ordinary of days, yet I was charmed by it, my restlessness tamed by his content. He could put aside all his uncertainties, and give himself over wholly to the simple pleasures of warmth, and peace, and quiet company, for which I envied him more than I could well say, having never been skilled at it in my life. He darned socks with meticulous care, while I ordered and annotated my commonplace book. We ate a small luncheon; then he wrote, and after clearing some space I practised at singlestick. He raised his eyebrows when I came near to knocking the lamp off the table, and reminded me that Mrs Hudson would be distressed if I broke it: it was a relic, apparently, of her late lamented sister’s. Later, after dinner, when I shed my jacket and tie and donned a dressing gown, he loosened his own tie, and we sat at our ease. He read to me, and laughed at me for not liking Frank Churchill and his palterings with poor, besieged Jane (for of course I deduced immediately what their prior connexion must have been, though I did not mention it to Watson, not wishing to spoil his fun). I played until my fingers ached, and he applauded me, but told me to stop after an hour, lest I hurt my hands.

We parted at ten, he with a bright face and buoyant step, and I with an ache in my heart. If I were not a man, my treacherous mind whispered to me . . . if I were not a man, or if he were a man such as I, we might have had all of this and more. I could have smiled with my heart in my eyes, not dipped my gaze lest I betray myself. His hand might have rested on mine, or my head bowed to his kind shoulder as we sat close. Our mouths might have met, gently, caressing, our bodies touched, and then, ah then, were I not a man, there might have been fiercer, sweeter joys, the joys I knew of only from Ovid and Juvenal, and Catullus . . . joys I had never thought to want. Joys I had despised.

But these would never be my joys, I thought, grimly, preparing my morphia before I went to bed. These would never be my joys, and to retain what joy I had, I could never show what more I, and my wilful, craving heart, wanted.

*****

We were quiet together again the following morning, as the rain beat down, and the wind howled in the chimney. Watson sat scratch-scratching with his pen for much of it, wholly absorbed. For myself, under cover of a microscopic examination of some stone chips from the different bridges over the Thames, I watched him as he wrote, trying to fathom the mysteries of my own inexplicable love for him.

‘Holmes,’ he said to me, just before noon, capping his pen with a satisfied air, ‘I do not believe you are interested in that blessed experiment at all. Every time I look up, your eyes are piercing quite through me. Have I a smut on my face the origins of which you are deducing, or am I simply a convenient resting point in the distance?’

I startled. Had I been too obvious? My God, had he seen something of what I concealed? ‘I am restless, cooped up in here,’ I replied, admitting the lesser cause to hide the greater. ‘My mind tears itself to pieces without work. A day, a day or so after a case, to allow my brain to classify, or quantify, or discard, all that I have learnt, and then I begin to hunger for new things. I must have work, Watson.’

‘I know,’ he said then, surprising me. ‘I see it in you, Holmes. There were chaps like you in the army, just such restive, nervous types: thoroughbred horses, eager for the race, willing and fiery, but the devil to drive or ride. And then there were chaps like me,’ he went on, rising to his feet, and stretching. ‘We are the workhorses of this world, are we not, steady at the plough? But that,’ he went on, and then he broke off, and strolled to the window. I narrowed my eyes, observing. His nonchalance was affected, a cover for some deep feeling; I was sure of it. ‘But that is not what I wished to say. Yesterday, we spoke of my return to the army.’

‘We did,’ I replied, not wishing to commit myself to more. ‘Is there . . .?’

His back was towards me; he stood, head bent, fiddling with the tie of the curtain, passing the silk through his thin fingers.

‘Holmes,’ He stopped, cleared his throat, began again. ‘Holmes, should you think me a great coward if I said that I do not wish to return? Even if they will have me? Oh, it is not that I would not fight for my country, if needed,’ he went on, hurriedly. ‘Of course, I should do my duty. I hope – I hope I am not such a coward as not to do my duty in a just war. It is only – I am a doctor. And I have seen so many die. There have been so many I could not save. It was not a just war, that is another thing.’ His head dropped further; the silk curtain cord twisting through his hands. ‘I did not truly expect glory – when I spoke just then of covering myself with glory it was irony, in part – but I did not expect so much dishonour, Holmes. Nor the treachery of men, nor the cruel waste of life. And yet, in that unjust war, I killed. I am a healer, yet I have killed, ruthlessly, repeatedly, to save my own worthless life, and in my dreams, I kill again. You know this, do you not? You have seen . . .’

‘I have,’ I replied, gravely, and I had. I had woken him now on more than one occasion, standing and calling him softly, beguiling him back to the world. Sometimes he would turn away from me when he woke, shamed and shaking, and then I set his brandy down by him, and retreated without a word, to spare him. Sometimes he would utter a word of thanks, stretch out his hand, and I would give him the glass. Once our fingers touched. I felt his trembling, and he uttered a wordless apology, and pulled away. Once he smiled at me, and called me a good fellow, and kind to him. Kind! Would that I could have been kinder! Would that I could have been tender to him in his distress! I scarcely knew what tenderness was, either given or received, but for him I would have learned.

‘You may not be passed fit for active service,’ I reminded him, to buy time while I thought what best to say. ‘And if you are not, they will not take you back, so the question of your cowardice – which I do not in the least believe in, by the way – will not arise. And if you are passed fit, we will decide then. I do not think you are obliged to serve again, Watson.’

‘But I must do something. In July.’ There was a long pause. ‘I have been wondering . . . Holmes . . .?’

I set my stone samples aside and joined him by the window, where we stood shoulder to shoulder, looking at the falling rain.

‘The answer is yes,’ I told him. ‘If we can by any means afford it, Watson, I would wish to remain in Baker Street, and I do not believe I would go on half so comfortably with any other but you as a companion. So we need only think of what you might do. You might see clients here, as I do.’ I glanced around. ‘Ah – then again . . . perhaps not . . . My experiments have, it appears, left some ineradicable traces. I wonder that Mrs Hudson does not complain more often, now I come to look about me.’

He shook his head, and laid a hand briefly on my arm. ‘If you have not deduced by now that Mrs Hudson looks on you as a son, even after so short a time, you have not the perception I believe you to have. And I would not like to share with anyone but you, old man. You have been the best of companions to me these months.’

‘Then it is settled,’ I said. ‘Let us think now of how you may obtain your living. It should not be difficult, Watson: you have the training of a physician and a surgeon both. Either would serve you. Do you have an accoucheur’s skills, or have you not practised those? Women do have this habit of parturition, you know, since the human race seems driven to renew itself. Children are born every minute: surely there must be a pressing need for assistance in bringing them into the world?’

He laughed then, and glanced at me, his eyes amused. ‘And what would you know of such things? You are the complete bachelor, Holmes: never was a man more unapt for marriage and fatherhood. Although you are kind to your Irregulars: I must not belie you there. No, Holmes, even if I begin to work up a practice directly after the army board, even if every gravid female in this part of London were to beat a path to my unpractised door, it would not bring in enough immediately to live here. I must have regular employment. I might look around the hospitals, I think.’

‘Would Stamford perhaps know of an opening?’ I suggested, diffidently.

He sighed. ‘He once worked under me, and paid for the privilege. How far have I fallen now, that I must go cap in hand to my old dresser? Yet it is a capital thought, Holmes, and to say truth, I am too poor for pride.’

‘You are too good for false pride, Watson,’ I told him. ‘And I also have been too poor for pride. It is only now that I have proved myself to Lestrade and Gregson that the sovereigns come in a little more easily. I have been poorer than you.’ I shivered, inadvertently, thinking of some of the places I had inhabited, the dirt, the noise, the impossibility of keeping clean, and he looked at me in concern.

‘You are cold? You should eat more, Holmes, you are too thin by half: it is no wonder you shiver. Come away from the window now, nearer the fire. I will speak to Stamford tomorrow. And – are you sure, Holmes?’

‘Very sure, Watson.’ I allowed myself to be shepherded to the fire. ‘Very sure.’

‘Then I shall speak to Stamford. And it cannot hurt to ask around some of the other hospitals. If the rain eases at all, old fellow, what do you say to a walk? You need to get out before you are shooting the walls again, and I am sure Mrs Hudson will have my coat ready soon. Shall it be Regent’s Park, or should we venture further afield?’

*****

The rain did not ease that day, but the following morning dawned fair, washed clean and smiling. Watson rose earlier than I for once, and was down betimes. I heard him ring for Mrs Hudson, and her step on the stair. Some short colloquy passed between them, and then the air was rent with a wounded, leonine roar such as I had never heard from the good doctor before.

‘Spirits of salts! What business had the foolish girl with spirits of salts? Why do we even have spirits of salts in the house for all love? Bring me the coat, Mrs Hudson, bring me my damn – bring me my coat. Or what is left of it,’ he added bitterly, in a slightly lower tone. ‘My God, what have I done to deserve – what will I do for a - but is Janey hurt, Mrs Hudson? Has it burned her? Bring me the coat and the child.’

I did not hear exactly what she said, but his voice was still raised when he replied.

‘Of course she is a child, she is but fourteen. And of course you shall not dismiss her, Mrs Hudson, what do you take me for? Dismiss a child over an old coat? A silly child with but half her wits, and from the foundling hospital too? What would become of her if we were to dismiss her? She has no family to take her back: you know what fate would await her. I must see she is not hurt: if you say she will not venture here, for fear of my anger, let us go to the kitchen directly.’

There were more murmurs. Then, in his normal tones,

‘Of course I will not shout at her, Mrs Hudson. I will roar her as gently as any sucking dove, but I must be certain she has come to no harm. Heavens, if it had splashed her eyes, her face, poor little wretch: she did not know what she meddled with, clearly. It does not disfigure quite like oil of vitriol, but it burns deep for all that.’

Mrs Hudson’s voice, raised a little, ‘But what of the damage to your coat, Doctor?’

‘To hell with the coat, Mrs Hudson, saving your presence. I must see that the child has come to no harm. Instantly if you please.’

And then their voices, retreating down the stairs. I made haste to dress, and prepare myself for the day. I chose my oldest and plainest suit. I sat, and I waited . . .

His step on the stair, when he returned.

His step on the stair. As if I could see his face, I could read his weariness and despair. I heard him sit, heavily. When I went in to him, he sat bowed over the wreck of his old coat, one hand idly stroking the lapel.

‘I daresay you heard all of that; forgive me my bad temper, Holmes. She’s not harmed,’ he said to me, without looking up. ‘The coat is no matter, but I feared lest Janey might be harmed. But believe me, I have given Mrs Hudson a pretty stiff lecture about labelling bottles correctly. Fortunately, the child poured it on, rather than dab it with a cloth, and she saw what she had done directly the coat began to stain and ruin. And she is sorry, of course. Good grief, Holmes, how she did weep and howl and sniffle, and Mrs Hudson lament. Never was there such an outpouring of salt water: it was a veritable Niagara. May heaven defend me at all costs from the too-copious tears of women! I ended by begging some pennies of Mrs Hudson and sending the child to buy bonbons, to stop her wailing. She will certainly never pour anything from an unlabelled bottle again. Poor silly wench, she’s ‘nobbut sixpence i’ th’ shilling’ as my countryfolk in the North have it. I could not ask Mrs Hudson to turn her away, for all that she has left me coat-less.’

‘She mistook the spirits of salts for spirits of hartshorn?’ I enquired. ‘My heart was wrung for him. I had all but planned this, it was true, but Mrs Hudson had been more wholesale than I had believed she could be. My deductions had led me to a tear or a rip, the stiff brush scouring through old fabric. I had not envisaged such competent destruction. Whatever she thought about me, it seemed it was Watson she regarded as a son: her maternal ruthlessness quite astounded me. ‘Well, we shall have to find a new coat for you, old fellow, since that one is ruined.’

‘Mrs Hudson has a man’s coat,’ he replied. His mouth was wry. ‘Some relic of son or husband. I never thought that I should come to such a pass that I should be indebted to my own landlady for the loan of a coat. But I must take it, be it never so old, for I certainly cannot wear this nor afford another. It is an unlucky chance, old fellow, and I fear that we will not be walking together soon. I do not know what she will bring me, but whatever it is, I must wear it, or go without. Dear God, let it not be too bad.’

Mrs Hudson brought the coat with our breakfast. His relief and thankfulness were so great when he saw it, that if he had ever entertained any suspicion he had been practised upon, I believe it was wholly swallowed up in that relief. Although, when I considered it again, watching him deal patiently with Mrs Hudson, I was sure he did not suspect our plot: never was man more innocent or transparent. He apologised sweetly to her for what he termed ‘unparliamentary language used in the heat of the moment, and now much regretted as unbefitting from a gentleman to a lady’, apologised for his temper – ‘l snapped at you in a wholly unwarranted fashion, Mrs Hudson, do, pray, forgive me my ill manners’ - enquired after the girl, and repaid Mrs Hudson the tuppence he had borrowed. Meekly, at her urging, he donned the coat to try it, a good, plain indigo-blue broadcloth, a little rubbed, and made after a slightly military fashion. It was a trifle large on him, but no matter, he would fill it out in time. She hung it on the peg for him with a small, satisfied smile, and I knew as well as if she had told me that she and the girl would take a private delight in their complicity. When, after breakfast, he looked out of the window at the clear April sky and suggested we walk, my heart bounded irrepressibly, gambolled like a puppy, and I hastened into my own coat as he donned his. Once on the pavement, he crooked an elbow, I tucked my hand in his arm, and we set out for Regent’s Park.

It was purest happiness to walk with him that morning. The coat’s colour brought out his blue eyes, as I had known it would. He was warm, and well-clad, and I no longer feared that the winds of winter or strong spring breezes would wreak havoc on his unprotected breast. We rambled about for a good hour, and I took pains to amuse him with my deductions, teasing out scraps of stories from passers by, seeing the little histories written in face or hand or demeanour. He praised me, and laughed, and his arm kept my hand so very warm within his close hold. My fingers touched the fine wool; I caressed it, moving as light as a falling leaf, lest he should remark my touch. And I walked on air, my heart dancing within me. He wanted to stay with me. He would choose to stay with me, to remain at Baker Street, with me, who had never had a true friend. What if he and I could never be more? I might not have got what I wanted, might never have what I wanted, but oh, how I wanted what I had got.

*****

It was as well that we had seen to his coat, for April was mostly wet and windy, and there were frosts even into May. The cases came in slowly, and so we walked together often. Now that he was no longer ashamed to be seen with me, I prevailed upon him to accept my near constant presence, and we ventured further afield.

A ‘client gifted me with tickets’ to hear Joachim perform in early April. I inveigled a reluctant Watson into coming with me, sadly citing my lack of other friends. He melted at my hint of loneliness, and we sat in the stalls together, his navy broadcloth sleeve companionably touching my black one. I was not rapt away by the violin as usual, although Joachim displayed his usual fiery brilliance of attack, for I was engaged in watching Watson’s response to the music. He was open as the sky: no dissembler of feeling he, alas. Afterwards he allowed that the celebrated violinist played well, and that Madame Schumann had accompanied him to perfection, but added, ‘I confess to preferring my private concerts with you, old fellow.’ I could have wept, or kissed his feet: instead I waved away the compliment and believed that I did not feel myself blush with pride and pleasure.

A new museum of Natural History opened in South Kensington, and we visited often. He was more knowledgeable than I about the animal kingdom, and had read more: he was well aware of Mr Darwin’s and Mr Lyell’s work, and could tell me much about the curiosities displayed in the fine cases. I could not see how such knowledge would assist me in my work, but I was always glad to hear him talk, to mark the brightening of his eyes as he expounded a theory or detailed a fact. Sometimes I learned something of his own experiences from him through our discourse, but for the most part, he was as chary of talking of them as I was of mine. I deduced much of his childhood from his omissions, and wondered to find that he, like me, had been lonely and neglected.

And it was joy to be with him at the museums and exhibitions we frequented. If I won a smile from him at my woeful ignorance, if he clapped me on the shoulder with a laughing, “Really, old fellow, did you not know that?’, if I could walk close to his side, our steps matching, my hand always within his arm, I was happy. Coffee was cheap enough, and a saveloy or a penny bun for a frugal luncheon, and a concert, maybe, before we returned home to Mrs Hudson’s good dinners. Then there were quiet evenings in our sanctum, when he read to me, and I played for him. Although I maintained my regimen of morphia, to quell the beast within, I was scrupulous in my dosages, taking only so much as would quieten my flesh. I would not sully our friendship with my shameful desires.

Towards the end of April, there was a new operetta at the Opera Comique. It was ‘Patience’, a satire on the Aesthetic movement which I longed, yet feared, to attend. It pained me to see Wilde burlesqued. We were not acquaintances, but I knew of him through the Fancy: for he was a man of my year, and had been up at Oxford when I was moping around my Cambridge rooms. We both boxed as amateurs, though we had never been up against each other. His was a very different character to mine, yet I had marked him long since as one such as I. He was a dedicated aesthete: I believed him also to be an invert, whether he knew it yet or no. And he fascinated me, for he was so much what I was not. His verbal and sartorial flamboyance astounded and appalled me; his courting of social disaster terrified and electrified me at once. Myself, although in moments of excitement I could not always control my manner, I took care that my demeanour tended to the coolly severe, my dress to the quietly prim, with no hint of a luxuriance that might betray me. Though internally I might feel so acutely as to be almost mad with it at times, and externally I delighted, as I have said, in the caress of silk, in all that was sensuous and fine, I allowed nothing of this to show to the world. In any case, I suggested to Watson that we might attend Patience, and was both pained and relieved at his decided negative.

‘I do not like to see a man pilloried for what he is,’ he said to me, quietly. ‘Parodying the government, or society in general, is fair game, but for myself I will not see a man’s weakness or personal beliefs mocked.’

‘Weakness?’ I queried. I know my tone was sharp. ‘You see his aestheticism as weak? Why, Watson, you have enthused over the flowers of the field many times in my hearing. You love what is fine and beautiful, what stirs the soul. Yet you call it weakness, to have, to express, these feelings?’

‘To have them, no; I freely confess that beauty moves me. To express them immodestly and immoderately as he does, yes, it is weakness - and foolishness into the bargain. Wilde courts adulation and obloquy in equal measure, it seems. And it is his personal flamboyance that they parody, not just Aestheticism itself. I do not like mockery, Holmes, so I pray you will excuse me from attending. And I am not in spirits for comedy, to be truthful with you. The newspapers report that a cessation of hostilities in Afghanistan is imminent, and I am anxious about the fate of my regiment, and the men I knew.’

‘But you do not condemn the man himself?’

‘I know nothing of him to condemn.’

‘His manner and lifestyle are excessively – emphatic. Exuberant. Decadent? Effeminate? Many condemn him.’

‘I think he is a singularly foolish young man with a taste for showing away that may yet be his downfall. The world is not kind to those it affects to lionise, and as I said, he courts adulation. Yet I do not condemn a man for his character, Holmes. We all have our demons, sleeping and waking. Do you object to him so much?’

‘No. Yes, I – I don’t know . . .’ I was at a loss to know what to say. How to explain. That I worried lest he see Wilde’s inversion in me, that it repel him. It mattered little to me whether he condemn Wilde or not. Only that he should not condemn me.

‘You are his very antithesis, it is true,’ he remarked then. ‘Holmes, Holmes, what is this? I do not understand your anxiety in the least. Do you so wish me to attend Patience with you? I will if it pleases you, of course; I am not so churlish as to deny you that, old fellow.’

“No,’ I sighed. ‘Perhaps I only wish you to _have _patience with me, Watson. Forget I spoke, it is of no matter. Tell me instead of your regiment. Of Afghanistan.’__

We dropped the subject of Wilde by mutual agreement, and our talk was then of politics and soldiering. The renewed interest in the end of the conflict in Afghanistan, and the conduct of our diplomats and generals there occupied him exclusively over the next weeks. His nightmares returned in full force, and with them a relapse of the fever. He spent several days huddled over the fire, wan and weary, and refusing food. Mrs Hudson and I cockered him up with nourishing soup, and whatever small delicacies I could afford and she could devise. He thanked us with gentle courtesy, but half the time I could see that his mind was far away. I wondered to what extent his bodily weakness was the result of his anguished feeling, or whether he might have been less physically low had he been mentally stronger, but soon I came to understand that the two were so intertwined as not to be separated. Whatever the underlying cause of his relapse, however, the end result was that by the time of his medical board in May, he was reduced to so very low and wan and trembling a condition as for its decision to be a foregone conclusion. He was invalided out from the army, and sent, with thanks for his sacrifice of health and livelihood, and a further small gratuity of twenty-five guineas ‘in recognition of your outstanding and noble service, Dr Watson, and may we say how sorry we are that you are not fit enough to return,’ out into the world to make his own way as best he could with shattered health, and no connexions.

*****

We spent a quiet, a very quiet summer. Watson pulled round, slowly, and the advent of better weather and some sun improved his health. The twenty-five guineas he gave straight to me, telling me that it would pay for his share of five more months at Baker Street. In July I renewed our lease for six months, to Mrs Hudson’s unexpected (unexpected to me, in any case) joy, and I returned him five of his guineas. I urged him to trust that he would be able to make the two months rent not yet paid by the time it was needed in the autumn, and represented to him very gently that he might need the rest . . . ‘your boots, my dear fellow, among other necessary expenses. We walk a good deal, do we not? And you are sure of some work through Stamford, not to mention that your stories are in requisition now. Let us be hopeful about our future.’

For he had a knack, had Watson, of describing in vivid terms the trials of everyday life: he had even a certain vein of sardonic North Country humour. When we strolled together, arm in arm through the streets of our great city, and I murmured my deductions to him, he found ample material in them for his tales. He was a great romantic though; not a story but saw some fair-curled, blue-eyed damsel in distress, rescued by a brave heart. In a moment of madness, I once considered begging him to write a different object for his affections, but it passed, and I renewed my guard on tongue and eye. Still, his romances brought in the shillings, and occasionally a sovereign. He wrote pretty constantly through the summer, but he had also other work in increasing quantities.

Watson had asked Stamford, now a doctor, rather than a humble dresser, where there might be an opening, and Stamford, good man, had spoken on his behalf. I, swallowing my pride, made a private application to Sir James Paget on the subject of his collegiate fellow from Barts, which I believe may have done rather more. The hours Watson worked were moderate, and the pay, consequently, moderate too, but by August we were sure that, with care, we would be able to remain in Baker Street. I took every case that came my way, the small, the unimportant, the curious. Lestrade became a frequent visitor in our rooms; Gregson put many a little mystery my way. My practice began to grow, and I had strange tales to tell Watson in our evenings together.

Matters stood thus in October, when there came a case that both anguished and relieved me. The day had been warm – unseasonably warm, even stifling, with a fine, drifting drizzle that wrapped London in a sticky cloud. I lay curled on the sofa, in my shirtsleeves, unable to bear the rasp of wool against my skin, and reading a letter from brother Mycroft, which gave me unwelcome pause for thought. Watson roused me from my cogitation by sighing heavily, and throwing down his paper. The slightest exercise of my deductive faculty enabled me to discern his train of thought: it was not difficult then, to amaze him by elucidating it for him. It was clear that he had been once more engaged on ruminating over the sadness and horror, and useless waste of life that was war. Although his eyes had brightened initially, as he looked at the portraits of Gordon and Beecher, and he’d revisited his romantic views of gallantry and glory in combat, he had soon fallen into melancholy. When his hand stole towards his own old wound, rubbing and pressing his shoulder as if the flesh were yet tender and healing, when his smile quivered on his lips, and he shook his head, I knew it was time to rouse him from reverie. How quick he was to smile at me! How swift to praise and wonder as I deduced him! As his eyes softened, and he gazed at me, how easily I could have knelt at his feet and confessed my love to him. Instead I jumped up, opened the window, and felt that the murky air had cooled a little, freshening with the night’s breeze. He was quick to respond to my suggestion of a ramble, and although it was well past dark, we went out into the thoroughfares of London, wandering Fleet Street, and the Strand.

I often wondered what he thought of those walks. We were always arm in arm now. I needed it, hungered for it: the only touch we had. He would stand, waiting for me, his elbow crooked. When I approached, and tucked my hand into his arm, he would press me gently against his side, almost embracing my hand as he sheltered it. Though wool and linen separated my flesh from his, I sensed his skin as if my hand could penetrate his shield of clothing and reach home to him. I was in an agony of desire then, my whole being focused on the point of contact between us. Sometimes, expounding a point of deduction, I would allow myself to grip his arm hard, as if wrought up by my intellectual exercise, and unconscious of my act. He would remonstrate, laughing at me – ‘Holmes, old chap, do calm down. I am not a criminal, you need not maul me so, I shall not hurt you.’ Sometimes he would pat my hand, soothing me. ‘Holmes, come now, you’re gripping me hard enough to bruise. Your nervous system is too finely tuned, my dear fellow, you’ll have me prescribing you valerian, as I do for my patients. It’s no wonder you’re so thin: that great brain of yours wears out your body.’

Oh, it did. My brain did wear out my body, the body quivering in hopeless longing, the brain feverishly engaged, spilling out roulades of deduction and reasoning, lancing, lightning-fast, the dull clouds of obscurity that was the whole of human conduct. Would that I could have been blind to my own desires, as so many I saw were to theirs. I was not blind.

As we walked, I watched, and I saw. Some couples were open and joyous. A young man raised his girl’s hand, linked fast in his, to his lips, and kissed it. She tilted her cheek, eyes slanted sideways at him, and her smile invited, and promised. An older couple walked arm in arm. He leaned on her; she guided his faltering step with tender patience. Years of companionship suited their paces so perfectly that they gave and took unthinking, their bodies almost dancing together. Other couples concealed desires illicit but acknowledged. Two women dawdled along the way in animated discourse. They did not touch, but their steps matched. Gold-hair laughed at raven-hair, and when their eyes met, they too exchanged an invitation and a promise. Gold-hair’s lips moved in the slightest of hinted kisses, and raven-hair blushed, looked down, then up through lowered lashes. I could see them. I could see what they hid. Could they see me? To me, my desire was naked, burning, as if I were stripped, transparent in my need and longing. Others saw only two sombre-suited gentlemen, respectable and arm in arm, one animated, expounding some point of interest, the other listening, quietly responsive. Thank God that they could not see, that I yet had strength not to betray myself and send both of us into ruin.

So we walked, many a time, I half agony, half hope. A vain hope, I told myself. A lost hope. I should not cherish it, weak, wounded thing that it was, not dare to give it house room in my breast. Then that October night we returned from our three hours ramble, refreshed, and he laughing at me, ‘It was unfair of you, old man: I would never have guessed her occupation in a century of years: you are too sharp for me in choosing these puzzles, too quick for my dull brain’ – and Dr Percy Trevelyan’s brougham stood at our door.

*****

The events chronicled - in part - in the case that Watson called ‘The Resident Patient’ are too well known now, thanks to his writing, to need any further elucidation here. What I immediately realised, and what I believed Watson did not, was that Trevelyan, that shy, nervous man, ‘like a sensitive gentleman,’ as Watson was to describe him, was an invert, and that his tale of patronage, fantastical as it seemed, was only a cover for a more prosaic, perhaps brutal, arrangement. In short, Trevelyan was not only Blessington’s – or Sutton’s, I should say – protégé, but also his catamite. I had in fact, on observing his attenuated form and sickly pallor, been reminded forcibly of those lines of Catullus, to wit, _‘clamant Victoris rupta miselli ilia, et emulso labra notata sero.' _Sutton also, when I met him, brought to mind one of the schoolmasters of my youth, a brutish, hard-driving man with rough manners and a heavy hand. He liked to flog, and took his pleasure in doing so, as we winced and pleaded beneath his cuts. It was clear to me that the unfortunate Trevelyan was caught in the toils of just such an one, and, for all his prating of five and threepences in the guinea, and for all his fine brougham and great house, had been bought and sold like any child of the streets.__

I cannot say what I was afraid of in the case, but afraid I was. I took it, of course, for we valued every penny, and Trevelyan was liberal. I only knew that as I observed him speak to Watson at our first meeting, as they discussed the ‘obscure monograph on nervous lesions’ – or was it the nervous lesions that were obscure, rather than the monograph? I forget, or do not care to remember - I disliked it more and more. A creeping, nervous unease possessed me, as I observed Trevelyan’s prim, cool manner, his thin, white, long-fingered hands, more the hands of a musician than a surgeon, his sober black and white, with the ill-suited crimson of his necktie the only touch of colour about him. Watson thought my interest keenly aroused in the case, but it was not that. It was not that, let me be honest. It was that he was a client in whom Watson might legitimately take an interest of his own, they both being medical men, and we had not had such a client before. And Watson felt sorry for the man, I could tell. It was evident in his gentler manner, in the acuteness with which he observed him. I did not want to see him thus attentive, I confess.

Sutton proved unhelpful that night, and since he had not told me the truth I left him to come to his senses. The note from Trevelyan the following morning – hurriedly pencilled on a torn scrap of paper, the irregular letters betraying great unease and distress, sent me post haste to Watson’s room, where I tenderly observed his peaceful sleep for a few moments before waking him in our usual fashion. He was worried as we hastened to Brook Street.

‘I do hope . . .’ he began, and then stopped.

‘What do you hope?’ I enquired. ‘I don’t expect anything good to have come of this, Watson. I could have helped Blessington had he been honest with me, but he is clearly in fear for his own life, and no man is ever so without knowing the cause. I suspect him of a past that has come back to haunt him, do not you?’

‘I do,’ he agreed. ‘And I am worried for that young doctor. As you know, I at first suspected him, but you have proved to me that he can have had no hand in it, and I must therefore consider . . .’ and then he broke off, and no persuasion of mine could induce him to utter another word.

When Trevelyan came out to meet us, his face a mask of horror, his long white hands twisting themselves ineffectually about each other, Watson gave an exclamation of dismay and hastened to support him, placing an arm round his shoulders and urging him into his consulting room to be seated. Trevelyan was, in truth, so pallid that syncope appeared a likely possibility, but I still did not think my friend had need to be so very solicitous. He continued to hover at Trevelyan’s shoulder throughout the remainder of the investigation until we left, and was unwontedly silent on our way home. He paid me no mind, but sat, looking into the distance. Finally, I could bear it no longer.

‘You take an eager interest in Dr Trevelyan’s concerns,’ I observed.

“Who that knows what his misfortunes have been, can help feeling an interest in him?’

‘His misfortunes,’ I repeated, contemptuously, ‘Yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed. He has been fortunate enough to obtain preferment for small cost, and at the expense of a resident patient who now no longer lingers to be an incubus or a hindrance in his rise to fame and fortune. Yes, he has been unfortunate indeed.’

I could see that my acerbity surprised him. He remained silent for a few minutes, and then observed softly. ‘I think you do not like this poor young man, Holmes.’

‘He is a matter of indifference to me,’ I replied, with as haughty an inflection as I could manage. ‘I simply wonder to see you so concerned about a stranger.’

‘I am a doctor first and foremost, Holmes,’ was his reply, and he fell silent again. For the first time that night, we did not sit together over a brandy, but he excused himself and went early to bed. We shook hands, as usual, but he left me with a look so serious, so uncheerful as to chill my heart.

I slept badly that night. I loved him so much that I could not bear there to be a shadow of coolness between us, and I tossed and turned, sleepless and sorry, waiting for the morning, when I could make peace with him. Alas, when I entered the drawing room he was not there, and Mrs Hudson informed me he had left early, citing a pressing appointment at the hospital, whither I knew he should not be going that morning, for he had not told me he was needed. An enquiry proved that no sudden summons had come by telegram, and so I could not think of any need for him to leave our sanctum thus.

I telegraphed Scotland Yard about the case – which is not, of course how Watson wrote it up - but otherwise would not stir, determined not to leave until my friend returned. For he was my friend, both in the sense that the pronoun implied, and in the singularity of the noun. My friend. There was no other. When he arrived home after luncheon – which I had refused – his coat was wet with the drizzle, and his face more serious than I had ever seen it. I pounced on him – positively pounced, I am sorry to say – insisting that he remove his wet coat, and set it to dry, that he come to the fire and warm himself, and that he instantly remove his shoes and put on slippers, crying that he was not to stir until Mrs Hudson had brought him a hot grog. He suffered my ministrations with an abstracted air, but becoming, at length, aware that I was observing him closely, he rewarded my care with a weary smile.

‘Holmes, you must not worry about me,’ he reproved me. He patted me on the arm. ‘I have had a trying day, and I am simply tired. But I shall do very well now.’

The grog arrived, and I gave it to him. ‘You were out so early, old man,’ I said. I tried for nonchalance, but I am sure my voice shook dreadfully. ‘I was anxious about you in this beastly weather.’ For the stifling heat of a few days previously was breaking, and the wind was rising. ‘It will storm tonight: I did not want you caught out in it.’

‘I shall do very well now,’ he repeated, and closed his eyes.

I sat down opposite to him. It was not a man’s part to ask him where he had been, but it was all I could compass not to do it. And he offered no explanation for his day, but simply sat in sad reverie, until we parted. He did not even ask me to play for him.

The storm broke that night with an unparalleled fury, a tempest of wind and rain. The streets were rivers; the continual boom amd growl of the thunder and the lurid flashes of lightning rendered sleep impossible. I crept from my room, coaxed the fire into life, and stood by the window, watching. After a little, I heard Watson’s step on the stair, and he entered the room and crossed it to join me. He, like me, wore his dressing gown, but he had pulled on trousers under his nightshirt, and thrust his feet into slippers. He raised his eyebrows when he saw my bare toes.

‘Holmes, if we are to watch the storm together, go instantly to your room and put on socks and slippers. And smalls would not come amiss either. The air is chill near the window, and I doubt either of us will be sleeping for a while. This is a truly majestic spectacle,’ he went on, gesturing at the scene outside. “I have rarely seen one as tremendous, not even in the hill country in India.’

I did as I was bid – I was so pitifully eager for him to care for me that I would not have refused him - and brought back with me also my old blanket. He, meanwhile, had poured us a brandy and soda. He handed me mine, and smiled as I twitched the blanket across his shoulders as well as my own. For a while, we just stood there, watching the flash and glow, timing the thunder against the lightning. At one point the storm was directly over us, and I shivered in excitement. He moved closer, and took my hand, tucking it in his arm. I believe he thought me afraid. We did not speak. Eventually, the storm died down, and we parted, silently, to go to our respective beds. I was consoled, our closeness, I thought, restored.

But in the morning, he was gone again, and he remained away most of the day. By luncheon, I was frantic. I suspected him of being with Trevelyan: was our friendship nothing to him then, that he could absent himself from my side without a word? Again he came in late, and weary, and was silent most of the evening. He went to bed shortly after, and this time there was no storm, no friendly nocturnal companionship to allay my fears or my jealousy.

I did not sleep at all that night. I waited and watched, not stirring from my room until Watson came quietly down, and let himself out. I followed him. As I suspected, he went to Brook Street, and it was to Trevelyan’s house. I saw him enter the house, then after some short time, he left it with Trevelyan, the latter muffled in a greatcoat and scarf. They hailed a cab, and I followed in another. There followed a long drive westward through the city, Watson’s cab twisting through street after street. Eventually we came to a long road of houses, detached and set back from the road. Watson’s cab drew up at one of them, and I told my cabbie to drive past. A hundred yards further on, I stopped him, asking him to wait until I returned. The man looked oddly at me, so I told him I was on Yard business, and that there would be money in it for him if he kept his mouth shut. I doubled back, silently, down the drive, to where Watson and Trevelyan stood, and listened.

‘ . . . may already be too late.’ Trevelyan was saying, in tones of utmost despair. ‘If I had not been such a fool, Watson. I have been such a fool.’

‘And you have paid a hard price for your folly, I am afraid. You must put yourself in my colleague’s hands, and hope. And for God’s sake, Trevelyan, if you must – and I know you cannot help yourself, so you will - then for God’s sake do not be so foolish again. You must in any case take precautions now if ever . . .’ and then he lowered his voice and I heard nothing more distinct.

I thought their discussion was ended, but then Trevelyan spoke again, and I heard my own name. ‘ . . . tell your friend Holmes? I wish you would not. He showed plainly that he had little sympathy for such as I. For he knew, Watson, he knew and he despised me. Any fool could see it. Christ, I see it, and I despise myself.’

Watson expostulated, seeming to offer comfort and reassurance, for he laid his hand gently on the other’s arm, and spoke. His voice was clear and distinct, and its import sent my mind reeling.

‘With your consent, yes, I must tell my friend, because I would not keep anything that pertains to his work from him: even this secrecy has grieved me. I owe him much, for I was alone when he took me in, and he has been kind. But you are wrong, Trevelyan, Holmes would not despise you if he knew. I do not believe he does: the man is curiously innocent of such knowledge, though a genius in all other respects. Also, you need have no fear of him. He is a friend to justice, not a servant of the law, and he holds no brief for those who persecute a man because his nature is as yours. Do not despise yourself, Trevelyan: I am convinced in my own mind, as a medical man, that such desires are inborn, and cannot be changed, I have seen enough, across the world, to be quite sure of this. Try to live with a little less self loathing, and you will do better. And do not again enter into any such devil’s bargain as you did. If you go whole and clean again you will be a fortunate man: do not take more such risks.’

His words were kind, but his voice was the voice of a captain speaking to a man under his command. There was no gainsaying it, and Trevelyan consented to his speaking to me, thanked him – blessed him for his kindness - in a low, moved voice, before entering the house. Watson stood looking after him for a moment, waited till the door closed, sighed, and limped to his cab. He passed me close in the drive, not remarking me in his abstraction, and I saw him tug his moustache as he murmured, ‘It is too late. He has left it too late. Poor young fool, if only he had heeded the signs, and he a doctor. Poor man. Poor, foolish, wretched man, and he a doctor.’

*****

The following morning saw me in a quandary. I wanted to speak to Watson of what I had overheard – for I had deduced now the whole sorry story – but I could not without betraying my dishonourable dealings. That they were dishonourable, I saw clearly now, the fog of jealousy having lifted. I had been driven by my own demons to spy on my friend, a thing unthinkably base and vile. Yet I had been rewarded, not punished, as I should have been, and that most richly. For as well as having my mind set at rest over Trevelyan – who clearly was no more than his patient – I had heard enough to understand that Watson valued me, not in the same way as I valued him, it is true, but value me he did. I was, if not dear to him in any romantic sense, dear to him as a younger brother is dear. It was more than my deserts: I should be thankful, therefore.

In the end though, I did not have to speak. He was at Barts all day, and I in the Yard, tormenting Gregson into offering me work. We sat down to dinner together and talked through our days, but when we filled our pipes and sat in shirtsleeves and gowns after dinner, when I would have played for him, he stopped me, and motioned me to sit down opposite him.

‘I must talk to you, Holmes, and I beg your indulgence for what I have to say, for it may offend you. Yet it must be said, so I will essay it.’

An icy rill trickled down my spine. Had he seen me follow him? He had not, it appeared, and I breathed a sigh of relief as he continued.

‘You did not like Trevelyan, and so I have not informed you of what I was about these last few days. But it has grieved me to be secret with you,’ – they were his very words from the night before – ‘and since I have, in sort, received my patient’s permission to inform you of our dealings, I must do so. I do not believe you were aware of this, Holmes – you are such an innocent in some matters of the world – but the relationship between Trevelyan and Sutton was not only a business one. Trevelyan was, in short, Sutton’s paramour, brought thereto by no real affection but by a lively sense of obligation, and some strong, coercive suasion. I am sure it seems odd to you, who are all purity of mind, that a man might stoop so far, but I beg you will refrain from censure, at least for my sake as his physician. To shorten my tale for you, I saw this at once, having had experience of seeing such abuse in the army – I will not bore you with details of the unfortunate young man under my command whom I had to rescue from similar sorry circumstances – and I saw also certain symptoms in Trevelyan that gave me cause for concern. You may have remarked his eyes: that irregularity in the pupils? That, his pallor, and a hesitation in his gait, coupled with certain tests I did after we concluded our case, make it quite clear. Trevelyan has contracted the _lues Veneris _, from Sutton, it appears, since he has had no other – attachment, and on such a feeble frame, it works rapidly. Yesterday I conveyed him to a discreet house where he can be cared for, and he will be attended by my colleague, Power, who is a renowned ophthalmologist, but it may already be too late. He will most certainly lose his eyesight, and I fear that once tabes sets in, no amount of mercury will stop the progression of the disease. He has paid dearly for his association with Sutton, poor foolish young man. I am so very sorry for him. His life cannot be of any long duration now.__

‘Why did you not tell me?’ I asked, weakly. It was not that I had not deduced the whole, for I had, although admittedly, I had not realised Trevelyan’s fate would be upon him so swiftly. It was Watson’s heart that amazed me, that he should – I knew he was a compassionate man, but that he was one to go so far out of his way for a stranger, and the stranger a man tainted not just by unnatural vice, but by a disease that would render him loathsome and leprous to many, that, that I had not reckoned with. ‘Why did you not say anything?’

He sighed. ‘Holmes, you are a good man. A moral man, a fighter for justice. But although you have much experience of vice and criminality, it is theoretical. You have not – forgive me, I do not want to wound you – you do not have much practical experience within yourself of the frailties of humankind, and perhaps that makes you the least bit – mechanical - in your reasoning. Even - dismissive - of the frailty of us ordinary mortals. You were cool to poor Trevelyan from the outset: you have been kind to me, but I know how sharp-tongued you can be. I did not want to expose the poor man to any more derision than he will inevitably now garner. The rest of his life, and it may be a short one, will be filled with humiliation and pain. I acted as a physician must in attempting to spare him what I could.’

‘I will not be so sharp-spoken again if it makes you think me cruel,’ I promised, through a closing throat. ‘Watson, I am so very sorry you have such a poor opinion of me. I would hate you to think ill of me, old fellow. Did – did you think me intolerant of his moral weakness, or of his physical disease?’

There was a pause before he answered. A long pause, and I trembled.

‘I have been in the army,’ he observed.

‘And so?’ I prompted.

‘Of course, one comes across such cases. Forgive me for speaking broad, Holmes, and stop me if what I say is distasteful to you. It is very much reprobated – cried out upon, especially when there is inequality in rank. But it is not unknown for close friendships – one might even say ‘heroic’ friendships, of the Achilles and Patroclus variety, if you remember your Homer – to form between a man and a comrade, and for these friendships to have an element that is physical. You have been to school, Holmes, surely you are not so unaware? And the situation out there conduces to such things, not just the strong sense of camaraderie, of fighting together against the odds, but the desperate search for some meaning – some _kindness _, Holmes, in a world of desolation and blood and death. Of course, it never came close to me. I was a doctor, and of necessity I held myself aloof: one cannot be friendly with a man whose leg or arm one may be amputating next day: I kept myself at a distance, being cordial to all, but friendly with none, as was my duty. But I could not but _see _, and what I saw was that there was joy to be had, for some, and much solace. I saw abuse, certainly, such as Sutton’s to Trevelyan, and that I put a stop to, of course. I would not countenance abuse among my men, though I was deliberately blind to – certain liaisons. You see, although I was brought up, as you have been, to consider such things vile and immoral, I could not find it in me to condemn men for seeking a little comfort when comfort was hard to be had. So I did not condemn those who made such things their solace.’ He shrugged. ‘And there you have it, Holmes. You are consorting with a man of broad sympathies, sympathies not strictly in accordance with modern morality. If you cannot forgive me that, then let us part, for I will not change. My resolution is fixed: I will condemn nothing loving or affectionate that is mutually agreed, no matter what form it take. But Trevelyan, as I said, was not so fortunate in his connexion: he suffered abuse, and will pay for it with his life.’ He paused, and waited. ‘What, Holmes, quite silent? Have I shocked you so very much?’____

‘No,’ I replied, but it was a lie. He had shocked me – shaken my foundation to the core, but not for the reasons he thought. ‘I just – I do not know what to say, Watson.’

‘Are we to part then?’ he asked, bluntly. ‘If my views are abhorrent to you, I will leave, Holmes. I do not expect you to partake of them: I know they are not usual.’

‘I do not want you to leave,’ I must make that clear. ‘Your views are not abhorrent. Just – just so very unexpected. I have never met anyone who thinks like you. But do not leave, Watson.’ “Do not leave me” I would have said, but I was too shy to utter it. ‘And I will ask you again: did you think it was Trevelyan’s morals, or his physical state I would find distasteful?’

‘You evinced a dislike to him that I believed was based on his appearance and manner. I did not know whether you had guessed at his inversion; his disease I knew you could not have diagnosed, for you have not the skill. The signs are yet too slight for any but an experienced man to see, but the venereal afflictions are common in the army, and I have that knowledge. But you might have disliked his being an invert. So, no, I could not be sure of you, Holmes. Of your sympathy for him, or your understanding.’

‘And you cared for him, provided for him, suspecting, no, knowing him, to be an invert, and aware of his disease?’

‘Most certainly I did. What do you take me for, Holmes? I did not swear the oath to tend and heal only such as suited my liking or could afford my fee, although since Trevelyan has reimbursed me for my doctoring, I am not out of pocket in this instance. I swore an oath to succour all, and so I will, that come within my purview.’

‘Then I admire and honour you more than I can say,’ I murmured. I could not look him in the eye, for fear he might see too much of me. ‘And – and I am sorry I let a transient dislike, an irrational impulse, blind me to doing good. For I aided Trevelyan, yes, but from material motives, and without my heart engaged. That was wrong of me, very wrong, to be so cold. Yet if I engage my heart, how shall I fare when reason only is required for deduction? What am I to do, Watson? Assist me, I beg you.’

He laughed then, his whole demeanour relaxing. ‘You refine too much upon trifles,’ he told me, and leaned forward to pat my knee. ‘You are the consulting detective, Holmes: let those skills you have remain your skills. Only perhaps be mindful that your reasoning deals with humans, and that humans have feelings that can be wounded. Hearts that can be pierced.’

‘I will,’ I murmured. ‘I promise that I will. And you will help me, Watson? We will work the cases together, with my brain, and your heart? You will be my, my Boswell, if you like, my companion, my associate – my friend?’

‘I will,’ he replied, standing, and smiling down at me. ‘I will, since you are generous-hearted enough not to scorn me for my unorthodox views. I will, my dear fellow, in anything that is within my small power, and here’s my hand on it with all goodwill.’

I rose also and shook him by the hand, trying not to let my touch linger too long.

‘Then we have a partnership?’ I pressed, to be sure of him. ‘You will come with me on cases and assist me, soften my faults, guide me in what I do not do well?’

‘We have a partnership,’ he agreed, ‘but I will not dare to lecture you. I shall just – be there, when needed.’

‘Yes,’ I said, my heart swelling. ‘Yes. You will be there when I – when I need you. I - I shall retire now, old chap, and see you on the morrow; I find I am a trifle weary. Good night now, and, and pleasant dreams.’

And I left him there, still standing, smiling at me kindly, as I stumbled to my room, nigh blinded by tears I would not have him see. He was so much more than I had ever dreamed of, my friend, Watson, so much more than I had ever hoped to have. He was all I could have wanted had I known there was anything to want. He was all I wanted now. He was all I could not have, would never have. He would, it appeared, have loved me without shame or stint, had he loved in the manner of my kind. But alas for me, he did not so love . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little explanation, perhaps.  
> Information about Watson's financial state, pension and army service is as accurate as I can make it, based on contemporary records.  
> Spirits of hartshorn is an ammonia solution, used for cleaning. Spirits of salts, by contrast, is strong hydrochloric acid, and not used for cleaning - or at least not used for cleaning woollen coats.  
> Joachim's concert was on April 9th. Madame Clara Schumann did indeed accompany him at the last concert of the series, to great critical acclaim. Watson is perhaps prejudiced in favour of his friend, since Joachim was one of the first violinists of the age.  
> The Natural History Museum opened on April 18th, Patience opened at the Opera Comique on April 23rd, moving to the new Savoy Opera House in October.  
> Wilde is 'a man of Holmes's year': both were born in 1854. He was the champion of Aestheticism, although not yet aware in 1881 of his own bisexuality/homosexuality. D'Oyley Carte lampooned him in Patience, amd then sent him on a reading tour of the USA in early 1882 before taking Patience over there, just so Americans could see for themselves what the operetta burlesqued. 'The Fancy' is the boxing world.  
> The British withdrew from Afghanistan on April 27th, when the Second Anglo-Afghan War ended.  
> Sir James Paget, and Henry Power to whom Holmes and Watson allude, were notable surgeons at Barts. Paget was semi-retired at this point, and mostly involved in private practice, but Power was working in the hospital.  
> Holmes quotes from Catullus 80 about poor Trevelyan. It's impossible to translate it politely, but basically, it implies that Gellius's boyfriend, Victor, has 'exhausted hips', and that Gellius's mouth still bears the traces from fellating him. It's really much blunter than that though.  
> The 'lues Veneris' is syphilis. Trevelyan's has passed from the early stages to the third, where he demonstrates the signs of 'tabes dorsalis' in his unsteady gait, which will become increasingly feeble, and his different pupil size, indicating ocular involvement, and that the neuro-degenerative stage is present. Unfortunately, despite the fact that he will undoubtedly be dosed with mercury - both the purgative, calomel, and the more dangerous corrosive sublimate - neither of these will do him any good, and may kill him of mercury poisoning before he dies of syphilis itself.  
> Snippets of quotes, for those who like to hunt them, from: Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Midsummer Night's Dream, Bleak House and a paraphrase from Stoppard's 'The Invention of Love', a play about A E Housman's unrequited love for Moses Jackson.


	3. First Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holmes and Watson keep Christmas

**Since First I Saw Your Face Part 3.**

**First Christmas**

**Holmes turns away from the lamassery. He sighs, treading steadily down the rocky path. It has been a haven – for a while. But he has finally established contact with Mycroft, who will provide him with a ready supply of money, dropped poste restante at designated places. Moran’s agents have failed to find him, so carefully has he hidden, but now he must turn the tables on his enemy, using all his hunting skills to track the old shikari as a beast to his lair.**

**He fumbles in his pocket, checking. The heavy iron scholar’s pen case hangs at the girdle of his woollen robe, but his pockets harbour, wrapped in paper, a great store of greeny gold lumps of hashish, and tarry black-brown raw opium. He will use them when the dreams become too hard to bear. He had hoped his exile would be over by now; that he would be back in London, where even in hiding, he might have had the opportunity to don a disguise and at least see Watson, himself remaining unseen. He knows from Mycroft’s letters that he would find him much changed, but even a glimpse of the sad, attenuated wraith his friend has reverted to would be better than this echoing emptiness. He is beginning to lose hope of ever being with Watson again.**

*****  


Trevelyan died before Christmas, half-blind and wholly raving, the disease having ravaged his feeble frame with devastating rapidity. Watson borrowed a black coat and tie from me, and we went to his funeral on a chill day in mid-December. When I initially offered to go with him, he had refused my company.  


‘Powell and I will attend, and a couple of other medical fellows. He wanted no other, indeed at the last, he would not let even me see him. He was so ashamed, poor fellow, so ashamed to be seen.’  


‘Did he – was he aware of his affliction, to be ashamed of it, at the end?’ I enquired. ‘I understood it was not so with the disease.’  


‘He had periods of lucidity, and then his torments were great, for he remembered what he had done and said, and what he was. It was a terrible end, Holmes. I am glad that you have never seen such. And the worst of it is how people treat the afflicted. It cannot be caught even from kissing, or from a cup, yet people shun those with the disease as if they were lepers. Or worse than lepers. Man is cruel to man.’  


I rose and went to him, standing before him as he sat: I could not see his misery unmoved.  


‘Yet there is much good in the world,’ I reproved him. ‘For example, here before me is an honourable doctor, once sorely wounded himself, and still in need of care, who has been kindness’ self to a chance-met stranger, succouring him to the best of his ability, unfailingly thoughtful and generous. And here is a man of, let us face it, doubtful morals and dubious reputation who is very grateful and proud to be companioned by that same good doctor. Pray let me attend with you, Watson. You developed a friendly feeling for young Trevelyan, I am sure. It is grievous to lose a friend, and so you regarded him, did you not?’  


‘Not a friend,’ was his reply, one which surprised me. He looked up at me. ‘I do not call many ‘friend’, Holmes. He was my patient, and I cared for him in due form. That is all, believe me. If you wish to come, I will not gainsay you, however. You are a good fellow, after all, and I know that you are sorry you misprised him at first.'  


So I stood at that forlorn grave, out of pity for the man put into it, and love for Watson. Afterwards, we dined together. I plied him with enough brandy to mellow him, escorted his faltering steps to the foot of the stairs, and handed him his candle with a warning to take care. He turned and looked at me, his eyes too bright, the flame casting flickering shadows that distorted his features into a Greek mask. His lips opened, parting on an unuttered word; then he shook his head and retreated. For a moment I almost wondered if he – whether he might have asked – if he had wanted. But I did not finish voicing the thought before I slammed iron bars around it, and bade it sink forever. He had looked so lonely in that instant. I wondered, in my madness, if he had been about to speak, to reach out a hand, to ask. But it was only madness, a cloud across the moon.  


*****  


Soon after came Christmas, our first together as room mates. Mrs Hudson had asked my permission to decorate our rooms. I could not see why she would want to, but gave it nevertheless, ‘Only that you do not disturb my decomposition experiment, Mrs Hudson, for a man’s life may depend upon it.’  


‘Then it may depend upon it out of doors for the festive season,’ she told me. ‘If it is flesh you have decomposing, Mr Holmes, it is not doing so in here. The mutton chop you disposed of under the sofa was bad enough.’  


‘Not all the perfumes of Arabia could sweeten that mutton chop,’ agreed Watson, strolling in and lifting his hat courteously to our landlady. ‘I could, as Hamlet said of Polonius, “nose him as I went up the stairs.” I am entirely of Mrs Hudson’s mind, Holmes. I have a few days leave from the hospital - where I have a surfeit of flesh, decomposing or otherwise every day – over Christmas, and I want no reminders here. If you like, Mrs Hudson, I will myself take the apparatus down and outside, and ensure that it remains covered and seemly. Here is your tobacco, Holmes. I was out for my own, and thought to purchase some for you as well. The weather is less dreary today: will you walk with me later, or do you have news from the Yard?’  


‘The approaching season of goodwill appears to have affected even criminals,’ I replied, and saw him raise his eyebrows at my morose tone. ‘Neither Lestrade nor Gregson has been next or nigh me for a se’nnight, I swear. There is a sore dearth of work, and I am weary of idleness. Let us venture further afield today, Watson, and see what we come across. Perhaps we will chance upon a crime, if one does not come by chance to us. Will you come?’  


‘A moment to set myself straight and I am your man,’ he promised me, his eyes brightening. ‘Mrs Hudson, while I think of it, may I ask what you are doing for the festive season? I am sure Holmes and I can shift for ourselves if need be, for Christmas day itself, if you have anyone you wish to visit. It is a time to be with one’s own, to cherish those who are dear to us.’  


‘I shall be remaining here and providing you with dinner of course, Dr Watson; whatever are you thinking? I shall certainly not abandon you at such a time. There will be a fine goose, and all the trimmings, I promise you, and a pudding into the bargain. And Janey and I shall have our own celebration too. She has a brother in service, and two little sisters still in the foundling hospital: if you should not object, gentlemen, I thought to have them here for the day.’  


Dear Watson. He told her it was a capital idea, and his hand went into his pocket book, returning with a sovereign I knew he could yet ill afford. ‘For the little ones,’ he urged her, when she would have demurred at taking it. ‘See that they are warmly clad, with a gift or two and a shilling, and come to me for more, if you have need. I have not had a real Christmas in England for some years – at least, not one that bids so fair to be happy,’ he added, glancing around our sanctum. ‘Let us spread a little joy, Mrs Hudson, and remember how old Scrooge came to his senses with the ghosts. He was in the right of it in the end, and so let us be too, for it takes little enough to make a child happy, as he did with Cratchit’s children. Now, Holmes, give me but five minutes, and as I said, I am your man. And take that experiment downstairs now, there’s a good chap, then I will help you secure it against the weather later, when we return.’  


I was helpless to resist him when he was happy. He smiled so genially, and commanded so gently that I found myself obeying him as I had never obeyed anyone, unable to refuse his pleasure. We took a cab all the way out to Richmond, to walk in the park, and he regaled me with some ridiculous story or other of an old miser who had come to his aged senses when visited by three tediously moralistic ghosts. I had never heard the tale before, and found it both fanciful and dreadfully sentimental, but apparently it was a tale often told at Christmas time, ‘and I cannot believe you have never come across it, Holmes. Why, even in Afghanistan there were a couple of chaps who had copies, and we used to read it if we could. It was a bit of home, in that inhospitable place, and I do not mind telling you I have been near to tears out there, thinking of home and Christmas. And now to have Christmas here, and in such comfort, and with you, old fellow. Forgive me, I daresay you think me sentimental, but it is so much to me to have this . . .’  


He broke off, clearing his throat, and I dared a slight pressure on his arm. My heart swelled with words I could not utter, and I stared in fierce, dogged silence at the unoffending ground.  


‘Holmes?’ he questioned me, after a while. ‘You will not object so very much to a little celebration will you? I know that your austerity, your reason, preclude, to some extent, enjoyment of the lesser pleasures, but you will keep the season with me, will you not? I promise I shall not overwhelm you with it.’  


I could have wept in my frustration. He thought me so far above pleasure, yet I craved it. I starved for his affection, for the warmth of his smile, his touch, his loving kindness. I was not the austere icon, the saint of the intellect he thought me. I was not the passionless creature I had pretended to be for so many years. I was human, and hungry, and the torment of longing and not having fevered me to madness. It was not just my illicit desires, the sick fantasies I medicated away, it was not even those that I yearned for most. It was the right to touch him lovingly, to caress and cling, to be healed and soothed and comforted, and to soothe and comfort in my turn. To know myself broken but accepted, flawed but loved. He was looking at me anxiously now, and his joy had dimmed, reined back to a patient acceptance. I could not see him joyless.  


‘I am not, ah, not a man of sentiment.’ I lied, for I was, I was awash with feeling where he was concerned. ‘I – I was not brought up to be.’ And that was the truth – ignored, neglected, the unwanted second son (for my parents had wished for a daughter to complete their pigeon pair) oh yes, that was the truth. ‘But Watson, you must not think me – ah – averse to all innocent pleasures.’ No, nor the chance of some less innocent, I added to myself. ‘I shall enjoy this Christmas much more because I am sharing it with you in our own home, and so let us by all means make merry, since it is your first Christmas here for some time.’  


‘Not quite the first,’ he said, his voice low. ‘ Last Christmas, I was in a London hotel. I had no home, no family, no regiment, no friends. My wounds meant I could do nothing, I was wasting my small substance on games of chance, and Holmes, it was, among many lonely Christmases, the loneliest I have ever spent. That this is so different seems a miracle to me – and it is all thanks to you.’ And he patted my hand as it trembled on his arm.  


‘I – I,’ I stammered. ‘I am, ah – glad of your company, too, Watson. And it was an excellent thought about the children. Perhaps I shall ask Mrs Hudson to provide some comforts for my Irregulars, what think you of that? Let us - ’ Yes, I knew then what I could say. ‘Let us enact the ghost of Christmas Present from the tale you told me, and spread some happiness, if it pleases you to do so. We have been fortunate of late: let us, as you say, give joy to others.  


‘Splendid,’ he exclaimed, and his smile outshone the sun. ‘We shall have a splendid time, Holmes. I am so happy, old fellow, that we are of one mind. If it truly does not displease you to celebrate, then I could not be happpier.’  


*****  


The tide of Christmas rolled inexorably over us. As if the fates had conspired to make Watson’s days bright, they provided us with a succession of starry nights, and calm, snowy days. A fir tree was washed into Baker Street on that tide, courtesy of one of Watson’s hospital patients. Delicate glass baubles appeared, to depend from its slender branches. Mrs Hudson (whom I am certain perpetrated the baubles overnight) affixed small silver clasps holding white candles to each branch end, and provided a bucket of sand and one of water to stand by the tree. (The sand proved exceedingly useful for one of my experiments: I made a mental note to ensure that there was always sand in our rooms.) A brief experiment with the actual flammability of fir twigs demonstrated the need for the water. Watson was quite put out, until I pointed out to him that the incinerated needles had a pleasantly resinous odour, reminiscent of incense. He enquired whether I had a fondness for burning incense, and on my admitting that I found it a charming habit, he presented me the next day with a packet, obtained, as I later discovered, from a fascinating little emporium purveying religious goods to the high Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. Thereafter our rooms were delightfully scented, and, as he commented, since frankincense and myrrh had been two of the gifts of the _soi-disant _‘magi’, the incense was entirely appropriate for the season. Mrs Hudson also commented favourably on the perfumed air, not failing to remind me once more of that damned mutton chop, which had been nothing more than an unfortunate oversight on my part. I do not like being cajoled or ordered to eat, and it had seemed the simplest way of disposing of it at the time. Had I not forgotten about it until it was quite, quite putrescent and announcing its presence rather loudly, all would have been well. As it was, I submitted to a stern lecture from Watson on my (really ridiculous) need for sustenance, and was forced into the indignity of scrubbing the carpet myself, ‘since I am damned if I make Mrs Hudson or Janey do it, Holmes, and I am equally damned if I do it myself. Really, you are quite impossible. Had it been summer, the place would be crawling with maggots by now. And do not, do not try to excuse yourself by saying that maggots are useful. I know they are, but nonetheless, I loathe them.’  
__

In any case, the spirit of Christmas Present (not content with simply telling me the tale, Watson had been reading it to me in instalments) was firmly ensconced in our dwelling. It was inescapable. Swathes of greenery dripped from every available surface. The air was redolent not just of our incense, but of cinnamon, orange and spice. Our table was heaped with practical presents for the Irregulars, purchased on our behalf by Mrs Hudson, and a veritable _confiserie _of poisonously-coloured (and quite possibly poisonous, although I was at least able to remove the verdigris-tinted horrors) sugar surreptitiously obtained by Watson, and added to the pile with a shamefaced air and the comment, ‘I remember how much I longed for sweets as a child.’ It occurred to me, then, what a good father he would make – firm and kind, strict and indulgent in all the right ways.  
__

We did not attend church – by some silent, mutual agreement, we both, I think, recognised it for the hypocrisy it would have been – but on the eve of Christmas, I came into the drawing room to find Watson turning the pages of a Bible, a small, stained volume, its limp India-paper leaves much dog-eared.  


‘It was my grandmother’s,’ he explained, in response to my raised eyebrow. ‘I took it to Afghanistan, for what sentimental reason I do not know. I believed once, as a child, Holmes, until it was forcibly borne in upon me that it could not be so. The belief was beaten out of me quite soon, in fact. Sometimes I wish – but one cannot go back. One can only go on, with no belief, and little hope. Sometimes it would be comforting to believe, but I know it would be a hollow comfort, a thing of no substance. I thought to read the Christmas story, for old times’ sake,’ he went on, ‘ but you know, old fellow, I cannot see it as once I did.’  


‘I think there are many in that situation,’ I told him, ‘Are we not all brought up as children to believe? And how many retain that belief? Very few. When we begin to question what truth is, when we see how religion guides man neither to honour or virtue, but instead serves as an excuse, or even a reason for the vilest of crimes, how can we continue to believe? For myself, I confess that I too am one of those who has lost belief. I am an infidel. I would it were not so – it must be comforting to believe – but I cannot. And one must strive then, to replace childhood’s certainties with some moral code that satisfies, and all the while in a world of uncertainty and pain, juggling doubtful good with certain ill in every act.’  


‘And if we replace religion with the Darwinian model, it seems to lead to a grim end,’ he observed. ‘All nature striving for survival, at the expense of others. Red in tooth and claw. What of goodness then, Holmes? What reason can there be for selflessness, if it brings no advantage to the individual who practises it?’ What moral code can a man follow without a deity?’  


‘You must look into Winwood Reade with me.’ I retrieved my copy from under my chair (how did things always find themselves there?) and showed it to him. ‘Perhaps we could take a healthy course of philosophy together, Reade and Feuerbach, not to mention Kant, as an antidote to this intolerable deal of seasonal sentiment and sugar.’ And then, seeing the hurt in his face that he could not conceal, I thought myself a brute. ‘No, no, I did not mean that, Watson, truly I did not mean it like that. I am a cross-grained creature enough, but not such a brute as not to feel. I am most terribly afraid of sentiment, you see. It – I feel things – I find myself moved – perhaps more than I would wish to be moved – and, and, well, I would not wish you to think me unmanly. Please, my dear fellow, don’t let my careless words hurt you. I – I am –dash it, it is difficult to say this, but, but, well, I have not had such a happy Christmas for many years. I am really very –‘ I looked around at our home, ‘I am quite con – so content here in, in our home.’  


He closed the little Bible, not without a regretful caress of its cover, and rose from his seat to replace it in the drawer of his desk. Mute with distress now, I handed him my book to replace his, and he clasped my shoulder kindly.  


‘My dear Holmes, you meant no harm. It is I, on the contrary, who am too sensitive on this subject. I fear I am dragging you into all sorts of sociabilities and expenses you would not go to if it were not for me, and I feel rather guilty, d’you see? But is it so much to ask for? Food for the hungry, and a little cheer; the sweetness of Christmas song,’ he nodded to the window outside which a group of waits was butchering the melody of ‘Lo how a rose e’er blooming’. ‘And I know you do not like sentiment. You are a good fellow to indulge me in mine without quibbling.’  


‘If more of us valued food and cheer and song above gain and gold, it would be a merrier world,’ I said, blinking hard against the moisture in my eyes. ‘But as for sweetness of song, Watson, even you must be able to hear that those waits are deplorably flat. Hand me my violin, dear chap, and I shall show you how the immortal Bach intended his chorale to sound.’  


Our tender moment passed, as I had meant it to: I could not afford his tenderness. He had no shame in showing it, but it was dangerous for me. He laughed, and passed the violin over, and I played to him. When we parted for the night, his goodnight was fervent, his eyes warm with affection, and he wrung my hand with such hearty goodwill that it was quite bruised.  


I cherished those bruises. I cherished every day, every hour, every minute of our Christmas. On the feast itself, he handed out sugar plums in abundance to the dirty, but delighted, Irregulars. The heavens opened and showered them with cakes and pies, mufflers, gloves, socks and boots, (which I told them firmly were to be worn, not converted into sordid specie for the purchase of tobacco and surreptitious tots of gin) oranges and nuts, clasp knives (which I knew perfectly well would be used to assist my urchins to commit numerous small crimes) and bright new shillings. When they left, sticky, surfeited and awed, he visited Mrs Hudson with our gift to her, a ridiculously expensive shawl, after the purchase of which he had assured me ‘my grandmother had just such an one, Holmes, and very fine she looked in it.’ He regaled Janey and her siblings with similar largesse to the Irregulars: never was there a man who so loved to give.  


Finally, I summoned him upstairs with some impatience, having waited to give him my own gift until he had leisure to contemplate it. No, let me be honest. Not until he had leisure to contemplate it. Until he had leisure to think only of me, to see only me. I wanted his warmth shining on me, so I could bask in it, for it to be me to whom he spoke with a suspicious break in his voice, for mine to be the hand he clasped and wrung again with affection and delight. I wanted his exclamations of wonder, his thanks and praise.  


Yet he did none of these things in the way I had expected, and somehow that moved me more than all. I had, not without doubt, and many hesitations, ordered from my tailor a dressing gown such as mine, cut from a sinfully soft cashmere in deep blue, and lined with what I hoped he would not realise was a very expensive silk. I had near bankrupted myself on it – had, in fact, been making excuses about being too busy to attend concerts for a month – but his eyes, his face, were worth every penny and more. He received it with ill-concealed surprise – he had clearly not expected any gift. The ribbon with which Mrs Hudson had tied it (for we had agreed it would appear to come from us both, and so I had told him) was undone by careful, surgeon’s hands, smoothed, and rolled into a neat bandage. He folded the paper back by little and little, and his brow creased in bewilderment as he saw the expanse of cloth. When he lifted it out, and it draped itself over him in opulent folds, he turned first red and then pale. He stroked the cashmere – stroked it with a lover’s touch, his hand shaking a little, and his head bowed. His unoccupied hand covered his eyes for a moment, and he set his mouth hard. For one horrified moment, I feared he was angry and then I saw that he was near tears. So I sat very still, and said nothing, and after a while he recovered. He told me in a low, trembling tone that he had never in his life had such a beautiful gift, that it was the finest thing he’d ever had, or was ever like to have, to wear. That I was his dear fellow, the kindest and best of friends. That he would always think kindly of me when he wore it.  


Mrs Hudson came in then, with our sherry, and he went straight to her, took her hand with courtly grace and kissed it, calling her the best and most generous of women. She asked him to put the dressing gown on, and they grew quite merry over how fine he looked. We drank sherry together, for I gave her my glass, and found a clean beaker for myself, and all the while he did not look at me. Not quite.  


He was unwontedly shy with me all through luncheon, and, I thought, did not eat as heartily as usual, toying with the pudding, and refusing cheese. He removed his jacket and tie afterwards, and wore the dressing gown again, spreading its folds softly about him as he lay back and sighed. I was about to sit down too, when he asked me if I would not prefer to take off my tie and be comfortable. On my return, also _en deshabille _, he looked up at me, smiled, and told me that we were both fine-feathered peacocks now. I subsided into my seat, colouring up, and he leaned forward in his chair.  
__

‘I have a gift for you too, Holmes, but I fear it cannot compare in glory with this one. Nonetheless, I offer it with much respect and affection, my dear man, and hope you may find it acceptable.’  


I opened my own packet with as much care as he, ruffling the paper back to expose a dark grey shagreen case with silver fittings. I knew it was a pipe immediately, but the shape of the case gave me momentary pause for thought . . . ah, an extension, of course. I lifted the lid to reveal, nestled into its crimson velvet lining, a Barling briar pipe, the Dublin bowl silver-fitted like the case. A cloudy amber mouthpiece, a horn mouthpiece, and a fine, albatross-bone extension, all mounted with silver, completed the set. It was a work of art - whatever he said, the gift was princely. Then a thought occurred to me, and I raised the pipe to my nose, and sniffed. As I had thought, it smelt of my own tobacco. I looked a query at him.  


‘I smoked it once for you, Holmes’ he said. ‘To check that it drew well, you understand, before I offered it. It draws sweet and cool, no acrid aftertaste or excessive heat. I liked the extension; it makes the pipe like a churchwarden, and easier to manage with a book in your hand.’ He handed me a pouch. ‘Will you try it? If it is not to your liking, I could always return . . .’  


‘No!’ I clutched the pipe to me. ‘It is a beautiful pipe, exquisitely made, a pipe fit for a king, Watson, and you shall not reave me of it. Leave off: it is mine now, I thank you! You shall not have it back! I have never had such a fine one: you are too kind to me.’  


He chuckled then, and bade me try it. It was indeed a princely pipe, but all I could think of, as we smoked in companionable silence, was that his mouth had touched it. His lips had caressed it, his tongue tasted its essence; velvety amber warm to his kiss, the bowl cupped in his hand. I shivered in a sensual delirium, as if he had touched me, as if he had taken me into . . . or as if (my mouth watered, involuntarily) as if I now tasted him, as I'd imagined, as my dreams had shown me, slick-soft, dewed, his own salt harsh on my palate . . .  


‘Is it good?’ he asked, and I opened fevered eyes to see him regarding me with a soft, quizzical smile. ‘Is the taste pleasing?’  


‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘It’s the best pipe I’ve ever tried, Watson.’  


‘Good,’ He was completely unaware of my dilemma as I sat there, grateful for the folds of dressing gown across my lap. ‘I’d hoped my taste was pleasing to you.’  


‘It’s perfect.’ I closed my eyes and smoked in silence for a while, willing my treacherous body back under my control. ‘Thank you, Watson, you are kinder to me than I deserve. I shall always treasure this, I assure you.’

*****  


We had been smoking and reading for an hour or so, when he looked at his watch, excused himself, and went to his room. He was down again in minutes, dressed in his street suit, his hat tucked under his arm. I was drowsing in my chair, lost in reverie, but I roused as he asked if I would mind if he left me to go for a walk. “I won’t be long,” he promised, “I have only a small errand to run.”  


On Christmas Day? I observed him narrowly through drooping eyelids. What errand could wile him from me on this of all days? And he looked oddly embarrassed, ashamed, even. My heart sank: surely he was not seeking a carnal interlude?  


“May I not come with you?” I asked. I was hurt, too, I confess. We normally walked together, after all. “I’ve eaten to excess today: the exercise would be welcome.”  


“Well, it’s only that – I shall not be walking our usual round, old fellow. I have a little private business, that is all.”  


Private business. Was that indeed what he was about? My shock - it was, it must be an assignation – must have been visible, and also legible, for he coloured, a deep flush pinking his cheeks and ears. “Holmes! On this day of all others: how can you think it? Do I seem to you the sort of man who is so – so incontinent in his needs? What cause have I ever given you to think - ?”  


His pain was sincere, and now it was my turn to blush. Had my mind not been on sensuality, on the imaginary delights of a caress given and received, I would never have thought it, it was true. “None, none,” I hastened to assure him. “Forgive me, my dear friend, it was unpardonable. My mind is the veriest sink it would appear: I consort too much with criminals. It is only that you looked – well, to be honest, Watson, you have the guiltiest air about you. And surely you can have no business on this day, of all days. But I will ask no more. You are no client to be deduced: you have a right to your privacy. Pray pardon me my offence, my dear fellow.”  


“Granted as soon as asked,” he assured me, though his brow was still sober. “I am not guilty, Holmes, merely – well, dammit, man, look here, and do not judge me. I know you dislike my sentimentality, and I am afraid of you laughing at me . . .” and he pulled from his pocket a small leather purse and spilled its contents on the table.  


“Shillings?” I questioned. “You have purchases to make? Can they not wait till tomorrow?”  


“I save them,” he said, and if ever a man looked sheepish, the good doctor did then. “Only the bright new ones, with a shine still upon them. I save all year, Holmes, I always have done, even as a medical student, although of course they were sadly few then. And then I – well, Holmes, there is always some wretched child or other, hungry in the streets. I cannot eat my Christmas dinner in peace, do you see, if I do not make some return on this of all days.” And he coughed, scooped the coins back into his purse, and strode to the window. “It’s not much. I don’t do enough.”  


“Do any of us?” My voice was unsteady, and I know he heard it. He was so in earnest, with his bright pile of coin, it unmanned me quite. “Watson, you put me to shame. Let me come with you, old fellow. If I add what I have, we can do more.”  


“I am a doctor, you see,” he said, as if excusing himself, and still shamefaced. “I always wanted to be a doctor, even as quite a small boy.”  


“You are a good man,” I rose, and went for my pocket book. “Give me only a minute, Watson, and I am with you.”  
*****  


We rambled through London. My arm was within his, and he was in merry humour now, certain that I neither laughed nor scorned him. Every grimy denizen of the city that we came across as we wandered thro’ the charter’d streets, every shabby figure lurking at shadowed corner or crouched in foetid alley was offered coin; told to “Run and find a baker’s, my child, or go to the pie-shop, and get yourself something to eat.” Several were bidden present themselves at the free ward of Barts on the morrow. “Ask for Dr Watson, and be sure to be there.”  


“Marks of weakness, marks of woe,” I murmured as we wended our way homeward, his purse empty, and my pockets lighter. “I mark in ev’ry face I meet. It is a sad city we live in Watson, is it not?”  


“You know Blake’s verse too? I often think of it as I work, Holmes: for it is true. Too many ills, too irremediable. Sometimes it is hard to have hope.”  


“Hope lies in our small choices,” I told him. “To heal, to give. To love .”  


“But is it enough?”  


“Arguably it is never enough, as long as Want and Ignorance hide beneath the cloak of Christmas Present,” I told him, for although I had thought his Christmas tale sentimental, that image at least had stayed in my head. “When they are no more, then we will have done enough. But it may take better men than you or me.”  


“I have great hopes of the advancement of science. Surely we cannot remain in this stupor of ignorance and bigotry.” He stood aside, gesturing to me to precede him up the stairs to our rooms. “I have great hopes, Holmes.”  


So had not I, though I said nothing, not wanting to bring a cloud to his brow. Mrs Hudson had prepared us a small cold collation, of which, his gifts now given, he partook with a heartier appetite. I played for him, and we read. We talked. He wore his dressing gown again, and I kept my pipe in my hand, caressing it as I dared not caress him. The night wore on, yet we lingered, as if loath to part.  


Finally he yawned, and apologised. “I shall have to retire, Holmes, or I shall sleep where I sit. Will you bid me goodnight, my dear fellow?”  


I rose as he did, and we met by the door. I clasped his hand in mine, and it rested there easily, unafraid. He was not trembling, though I was all a-quiver.  


“Goodnight, Watson,” I said, feeling his strong fingers press mine. “Thank you. For today, and many days, for your friendship, and the gift.” I could not look him in the eye. My mouth had dried as if I’d thirsted for hours.  


“Goodnight, Holmes,” he said. “I must work tomorrow morning, so we will not be breakfasting together.” He reached forward, upward a little, and his lips brushed my brow in the most innocently chaste of kisses. “A Christmas blessing, my friend. Rest well, now, and sleep peacefully.

The briefest of touches to my shoulder, his hand left mine, and he was gone, his tread decided, almost military, on the stair.  


“A – a Christmas blessing,” I called after him. “Thank you, Watson.”  


I felt blessed. I felt – I was - blest indeed – but I could not sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief offering only, to mark the festive season, with all goodwill
> 
> Quotes or paraphrases from A Christmas Carol, Hamlet, Macbeth, The Hobbit, Blake's London.  
> At Oscar Wilde's trial, he was asked whether he burnt incense in his rooms, and replied that he thought it a 'charming habit'. However, it was also a habit thought to be practised by inverts, amd told against him at the trial.  
> Many of the food colourings used at this time were, if not actively poisonous, at least deleterious to health. Bright greens made from copper salts were particularly bad.  
> Shagreen is shark or ray skin, cured into leather and polished.  
> The pipe Watson buys for Holmes exists in reality, and there is an example in a private collection.  
> Winwood Reade's 'The Martyrdom of Man' was the humanist's 'Bible' of the time. 
> 
>  
> 
> In Memoriam David Knight, died 1993 with AIDS-related dementia. A good friend, and a brave man. "He had periods of lucidity, and then his torments were great, for he remembered what he had done and said, and what he was."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning  
> This chapter discusses Holmes' drug use, and contains descriptions of addiction, the consequences of taking drugs, the effect of drug use on relationships and other drug related issues. If this is triggering for you, please be safe.

**Since First I Saw Your Face Part 4**

**In Lahore**

**In the cold hour before dawn, Holmes bids farewell to Mahbub Ali at the Kashmir Serai. He drifts out of Lahore by way of the railway station, and back in again by another route. It is not that he does not trust the burly, crimson-bearded Pathan who has shepherded him down from the high passes – he’s worked his way by grooming Mahbub’s string of sturdy Kabuli horses, after all, and now there’s nothing he does not know about this horse-trader turned spy - it is that he cannot afford to let hostile eyes see his connexion to Mahbub. He works his way slowly through the Motee Bazaar to the Ajaib-Gher, the Lahore Museum. Mycroft has assured him that the curator is a safe man, and Holmes needs both shelter and money. And rest: it’s been a long trek from Gan-Den.**

**Holmes wanders on. He is not remarked, for he wears the garb and mien of a saddhu, and all India is full of holy men, stammering gospels in strange tongues, shaken and consumed in the fires of their own zeal. No-one notices one sunnyasi more, or less. He stoops, to take off the height that would otherwise make him too conspicuous, hunches himself into his robes and shuffles along. He is burnt deep by the sun, and with his sea-grey, sea-green eyes can pass as some traveller from the high peaks of Kafiristan, where Alexander’s men once sowed their seed among the native women. If his language is imperfect and halting, it is only to be expected from a member of the Kafiristani tribes whom the Pathan regards as infidel, and the Brahmin as corrupt of faith and tongue.**

**It is in clumsy Hindustani then, that Holmes hails a group of small boys, squabbling over command of the great gun, Zam-Zammah, that sits on its brick platform opposite the museum. They turn to look at him as he speaks.**

**‘Bachche, jahaan main sangrahaalay ke rakshak mil jaega?’**

**One child, the leader, a slender, arrogant whip of a boy, strolls casually across to him, looking him up and down with an eye as keen as Holmes’ own. ‘Aap kaha se hai, Lala?**

**‘Mai Kafiristan se hu,’ Holmes replies. He looks carefully at the child. His command of the vernacular is perfect, but he is not Indian. Where his ragged shirt parts over his breast, his skin is white. A poor white, then, perhaps some soldier’s bastard. But intelligent, to recognise Holmes’ guise at once. The child has given him the title - ‘Lala’ - of a Hindu sunnyasi, but there is that in his eye which says he is not fooled in the slightest.**

**‘T- tum nam kyaa hai?’ Holmes enquires curiously.**

**The boy smiles, dipping his eyes and then looking up at Holmes through long dark lashes.**

**‘Mera nam duniya ke ek dost kai,’ he replies, ‘sangrahaalay ke kyooretar kaam kar raha hai. Mere saath aao, Lala.’**

**Holmes makes namaste and follows the child into the museum. The curator, serious and white-bearded, replies to Holmes’ code phrases in Hindustani, and takes him into his office, tossing the child a few annas and a couple of greasy sweetmeats, and issuing a stern injunction not to listen. Once sure that the child has gone, Holmes asks the question that has been pressing upon him during the weeks he has travelled. ‘What news does Mycroft send of Watson?’**

**’None good, Sir, I am afraid,’ is the reply, and his heart sinks.**

If Now I Be Disdained 

I had expected that Watson would repent of his affectionate Christmas farewell to me, and so indeed it proved: on Boxing Day, as we ate luncheon after he had returned from Barts, he apologised, stiffly, for taking liberties, ‘I should not treat you as a younger sibling, Holmes, since it is inappropriate, and over-familiar.’ 

I endeavoured to say, while my throat closed in sorrow, that I would be honoured to be regarded as his brother, and that I did not consider it a liberty, but at that moment we were interrupted by Mrs Hudson bringing in Lestrade, who compelled in front of him a small, excitable fellow, gesticulating wildly, and insisting that he was in no need of the services of Sherlock Holmes. 

‘Then let me swiftly dissuade you from retaining them,’ I uttered, sternly, for Lestrade’s arrival was most inopportune at such a critical moment. ‘I am afraid you have the advantage of me, Sir. Lestrade, my good fellow, who is your reluctant companion, and why do you bring him here at such a season? Dr Watson and I have barely lunched: this must surely be a matter of terrible urgency?’ 

‘Forgive me, Mr Holmes,’ replied Lestrade, ‘but I have just this moment managed to persuade my colleague here, Dr Stevenson, to call upon you . . .’ 

‘Why, it is Stevenson,’ here interrupted Watson, who had been turned away to the mantelpiece, filling his pipe, ‘What make you here, old man? Not at Guy’s today?’ 

‘Watson!’ exclaimed the fellow, surging forward and shaking Watson warmly by the hand, ‘I do not know what you are doing here, but for heaven’s sake help me to persuade Inspector Lestrade that I have no need of this mountebank’s interference in my work. He has driven me here willy-nilly, and all because he insists that this man, Holmes,’ casting me a suspicious glance, ‘can materially assist me in the terrible case of the Wimbledon murder.’ 

I confess my heart leapt when I saw Watson’s sorrow at hearing me thus belittled: his eyes turned to me with an expression of acute pain before he spoke. 

‘Now, Stevenson, you must not dispraise Holmes to me: we are friends, you know. I am here because this is my lodging, of course. Lestrade, may I offer you the compliments of the season? Mrs Hudson,’ turning to her, ‘Could I trouble you for coffee for the four of us? And then perhaps, Stevenson, we can consider the matter which brings you here without so much heat. Holmes, my dear fellow, may I introduce my colleague to you? Dr Thomas Stevenson, of Guy’s and London University, in the field of medical jurisprudence and forensic science. I am sure, Stevenson, that my friend Holmes will be of material assistance to you in whatever brings you here. I can attest to his brilliance myself, you know.’ 

My dear Watson. A man of quiet manners and simple common sense, but when needed, his authority was absolute. It calmed the man, Stevenson; it made Lestrade smile amiably. It sent Mrs Hudson, with a nod and a fond, approving cluck, to the lower regions of the house to make coffee. It mollified me, silencing the haughty retort even then on my lips, as I shook Stevenson’s hand, and uttered the usual inane platitudes, assuring him of my best attention, and inviting him to take a seat. 

Once Stevenson and Lestrade were seated, and the coffee brought and served, I leaned forward in my chair. Some banal utterances about the amenities of the season and the weather had passed between us, but I felt it was time to turn to matters at hand. Watson had remained standing behind me, his hand on the back of my chair during these exchanges. Strangely, I felt it was a gesture of protection: a lion-like standing guard, and I was comforted and strengthened. Now as I began to speak, he unobtrusively went to his desk, retrieved pen and notebook, and seated himself a little away from us. He would take notes, it appeared: excellent! 

‘I understand, Dr Stevenson, that you are here on the business of the late tragedy at Wimbledon: the suspected poisoning of young Percy John by his brother-in-law. A sad business indeed. I know nothing about it save what has been reported in the newspapers: to wit, that the young man died after a visit from his brother-in-law, that suspicions were entertained as to his death, and that an inquest was opened on the 6th of December last, and adjourned the next day; the Morning Post of that date informing us that the circumstances of his death continue to cause great concern, and much excitement in the neighbourhood, if reports are to be believed – which they often are not, to be sure. I know that on the 8th instant the Pall Mall Gazette reported that a communication had been received from the suspected gentleman, Dr George Henry Lamson’s, father to the effect that his son was lying ill at Paris, having been much affected by his brother in law’s death, that Lamson himself returned and went voluntarily to Scotland Yard asking that the aspersions against him should be removed, and that on the 9th or 10th he was refused bail, and remanded in custody on suspicion of Percy John’s murder. Hand me my London clippings file for December, will you, Watson? We are up to date, are we not? Thank you, my dear fellow. I notice that by the 15th, the avid reader of murder cases was teased only by the fact that ‘information of an important character bearing on the case’ had been obtained, and that by the 16th, the noble bloodhounds of the press were telegraphing the Pall Mall Gazette to the effect that since a vegetable poison, possibly aconitine, had been found in great quantity in the stomach of the deceased young man, an exhumation was likely. The Evening Standard concurred in this view, and Paget, on the following day was quoted as saying that bail would on no account be granted to the accused, it being murder or nothing. The London Daily News of the 17th instant was much more forthcoming, and gave us a superfluity of detail on the accused’s impecunious state, and his having taken a fictitious medical title, as well as providing information about multitudinous capsules and papers, and introducing us to two young chemist’s assistants who really should be more certain about whether it is aconitia or atropia they are dispensing. Dear me, dear me, how poorly we are served: why, Watson, any one of us might be poisoned at any moment. Mr Bond - your forensic specialist, Lestrade - opined that death was due to a vegetable spinal poison acting on the nervous system rather than the stomach, and that is where we leave the case until the 22nd, awaiting the intervention of Mr Montague Williams – Lamson has succeeded in retaining a man of parts for his defence, I see, but doubtless his father in Florence pays the score. Williams was prompt in his asking for depositions, with intent to resume on the 22nd, but in fact on the 20th, you, Dr Stevenson, asked for a fourteen day adjournment which would take us to January 11th. A knotty problem indeed, Doctor, compounded by the fact that the magistrate is of the opinion that there can be no charge of poisoning by the cake Lamson shared, only these capsules being suspected of carrying the lethal dose. You did well to come to me, despite your reservations, for I have followed that case with interest. I have already formed my own opinions based on a process of adductive reasoning from the facts at my disposal, and I am sure I can help you out.’ 

‘Wonderful,’ ejaculated Watson. ‘It is quite wonderful, Holmes, how you have every fact at your fingertips. You will see, Stevenson, that you were quite right to take Lestrade’s advice. Do not hesitate to lay all before my friend: he will make matters as clear as day. He will solve your case if any man can!’ 

Stevenson did not appear to share Watson’s admiration, but he grudgingly allowed that I had given a workmanlike account of the events to date, and admitted that he and his fellow specialist, Dupré, were endeavouring without success to determine whence, how, and in what quantity the aconitine – for it was definitely aconitine – had been administered; there also being some question of quinine tonic powders and quinine capsules that might have been adulterated with poison. Lamson had previously provided medicines for the unfortunate young man that had caused him sickness, but it was a question of how this final fatal dose had been given, and what vehicle had been used, and that they were by no means sure how to determine. 

Stevenson warmed further when I admitted to a keen amateur interest in toxicology. I flattered him to the top of my bent, and finally he agreed to allow me to experiment with him, since he had applied for a license to experiment on animals, to discover how the fatal dose might have been administered. We determined, therefore, that on the following day we should, Stevenson, Watson and I together, adjourn with Dupré to the laboratories at Guy’s. I drew Stevenson’s attention, before he and Lestrade departed, to a letter in the Morning Post of the 21st from a Dr Anna Kingford, of the Paris school of medicine, maintaining that animal experimentation would be inappropriate, since it was by no means the case that all lower orders of beings reacted similarly to vegetable alkaloids – rabbits, for example being impervious to atropia, and goats to nicotinia in quantities that would poison a human. I took the liberty of suggesting that he should attempt the Paris method of analysis Dr Kingsford mentioned: that of Rabuteau, Valser and Bouis who used chemical reagents to determine which alkaloid was in question, but he was little inclined to give credence to a Frenchman, still less to a female, and departed in renewed dudgeon, although without rescinding his invitation to collaborate. 

‘I cannot see,’ I observed to Watson, as he massaged his hand, cramped from writing notes, ‘why the average male is inclined to doubt the intelligence of women merely by virtue of their being women. I neither like nor trust the sex, Watson – the most cunning poisoner I ever met was a slip of a thing, blue-eyed, blonde-curled, and quite, quite ruthless: she disposed of two husbands and at least one child before being discovered, and but for the quantity of evidence against her would have wept her way prettily into a pardon – but I have never believed they are lesser beings.’ 

‘I have never doubted female faculties,’ he replied. ‘I have known too many fine independent women for that, Holmes, not to mention the fact that one only has to see an Indian matriarch holding sway over her family to be assured of their absolute ability to manage and rule – and of course there is the example of our own dear Queen, may God bless her – but I am afraid my own profession is among the most recalcitrant when it comes to admitting the ability of the female sex. The Blackwell sisters, Mrs Garrett Anderson, and Sophia Jex-Blake are proof of this ability in the medical field, yet they are confined to practising at their own women’s hospital, and my colleagues at Bart’s and Guy’s will not accept them. It is shameful indeed. But as to this poisoning – Holmes, I have never been more impressed in my life with how you had all the knowledge there, ready to call up – do you indeed have a theory? Do you, in fact, know how it was done? Put me out of my suspense, I beg you. If it was indeed aconitia, the sufferings of that poor, crippled young man –a mere boy, already struggling with paralysis of his lower limbs- would have been most cruel. I should like to see his murderer face justice and a due penalty.’ 

Oh, how his eagerness tempted me! I would have liked to tell him then and there what was almost a certainty to me, but some imp of perversity made me hesitate, made me draw out the delicious suspense that he might praise me more later. I temporised, whereat he accused me of teasing him, until I diverted his mind by proposing that we could ourselves engage in the chemical analyses suggested by Rabuteau, were we to find ourselves in possession of some of the viscera and stomach matter of the deceased. ‘Which we will not do without permission, Holmes,’ he asserted firmly. ‘I will willingly assist you in any experiment you wish to carry out, but I will not be party to the surreptitious removal of evidence in a murder enquiry, so do not even think to attempt it or I will myself hand you over to Lestrade.’ 

I protested that he lacked a proper spirit of adventure, and accused him of faint-heartedness, but he would not be cajoled or flummeried into yielding, and I was forced to give way. The diversion – and I blessed Lestrade for it – had, however, lifted the awkwardness of the morning, and Watson’s sweet, unshadowed smile and affectionate hand-clasp as we later bade each other goodnight assured me that all was well between us once more. 

***** 

The following days were busy indeed. Watson alternated between his own cases at Bart’s, the poky, malodorous hole in Guy’s where Stevenson worked with Dupré and Bond, the analytical chemist, and our sanctum. I divided my time between Guy’s and Baker Street, where I pursued my own independent line of enquiry. 

The case was a sad one, and the more that came out in the papers the sadder it seemed, for Lamson was a man near our own age, twenty-nine years to my twenty –eight, and Watson’s nearly thirty. He was a man whose life was built on a lie - on more than one lie, it appeared. It came out, as January went on, that he had neither the MD from Paris nor the FRCP from London nor the certificate from Cambridge that he had claimed, although his Scottish qualification was true, and he was entitled to be called doctor. His service in the Russo-Turkish conflict, in Servia and Roumania appeared to be beyond dispute, but whether he had, in fact received the honours to which he laid claim was anyone’s guess. Bankrupt, desperate, caught in a trap of his own making, a soldier corrupted, a doctor addicted – for addicted he undoubtedly was, to morphia - he made me uneasy when I compared him to my own stalwart soldier and doctor. Or to myself. 

For it disquieted me greatly, as the evidence mounted towards the end of January, to see to what degree Lamson’s morphia addiction had mounted, and to what lengths he had gone to hide it. His trick of combining morphia with atropine – the belladonna used to give fashionably huge-pupilled eyes to Italian women of the Renaissance – was a clever one: it had never occurred to me to counteract the pin-point pupils of morphia influence by adding atropia to my dose. I had never concealed - had never had anyone from whom to conceal - my own morphia use. The circumstances of my life allowed me privacy to indulge myself: not for me now the shared squalor of some drug den, but the decency of my own room, where I could lie in dreamy languor, undisturbed and undiscovered. Suddenly, my own morocco case, with its guilty burden of syringe and needle, was stark to me as it sat on my desk. I had never concealed it, but I had never needed to. I had thought never to need to. Watson was the soul of honour: he would have died rather than meddle with aught of mine. Now, however, I felt within myself a desire to hide it, to conceal it, and that part of myself, from him. I put the case aside, locked the alluring demon in a chest under my bed. I vowed not to use it, promised myself to submit to its spell no more: I was no addict like Lamson, enthralled, helpless, morally bankrupt. It gave me pause for thought in other ways too. I had always been careless in dress, but hearing reports of the abscesses and collapsed venous processes in his arm seen by Lamson’s doctors, I became scrupulous about my sleeve and cuff buttons. I had more than one scar I did not wish to expose. Lamson’s degradation, his abuse and the lengths to which it had led him, were an object lesson, and an unwelcome one, alas. 

Watson too appeared uneasy as January wore on, although to begin with I did not understand why. The little forensic analyst, Dupré, had taken a great liking to me. I thought at first it was only because the poor man was homesick for his mother tongue, and desperate for someone with whom to speak it. I slipped quite naturally into French when conversing, the mellifluous Latinates coming soft from my tongue, and it pleased me greatly to regain my own former fluency. I fell into the habit of lunching with Dupré when Watson was at Barts, sometimes with Stevenson and Bond, sometimes without. Watson made little comment, but it was borne in on me that he did not like Dupré when he quizzed me over our luncheons, ‘ . . . although I suppose at least you do _eat _during the day when you lunch with him. I cannot fathom what you see in such a trifling, dandified fellow. It is not that he is a Frenchman, Holmes: I have no quarrel with the French, indeed, I am sorry I do not speak their tongue rather better myself, so that we might converse together too, but I own, I cannot quite take to him.’ I promised to teach my Watson the rudiments of French, and he smiled, but his brow was clouded again the next instant.__

Whether Dupré wanted more than lunches or French conversation did not occur to me until much later, and by then I had already quarrelled with Watson over him. For Dupré had but one real vice, which was that he, like me, occasionally took a pipe of opium. One evening after working late with him, I succumbed to temptation – that damned morocco case had called me once too often, and I had abstained so long that the beast was growling within me, hungry for what it could not have with Watson, tormenting me with dreams of his mouth, his hands, his – dreams from which I awoke polluted and unsatisfied - and on Dupré’s suggestion I accompanied him to an opium den. What he hoped of me there, once I was subdued by the drowsy reek of poppy, I do not know, but I was habituated to the drug, and the small quantity I took served to stimulate, not to stupefy me. He, more unpractised, was soon overcome, and after calling a cab, manhandling him into it, and depositing him at his house – and into the arms of a manservant who confirmed all my suspicions about Dupré’s nature into the bargain– I ambled home with the stench of opium smoke heavy about me. I had thought I would have time to wash it away, but Watson was awake when I returned. He had clearly worried about my prolonged absence. There was a ruffled track in the carpet, where he had been pacing, the butts of two cigars smoked right down were on the mantelpiece, and a drained glass on the table. He himself was in shirtsleeves and dressing gown, his hair brushed up and dishevelled as if he had run his fingers through it repeatedly. 

‘Where have you been, Holmes?’ he snapped at me as I walked in – and then his head came up, and he scented me, and knew. ‘Holmes, was this for the case? Even so, I cannot condone it. Dammit, man, what are you about? You have taken opium have you not? I can smell the damn stuff on you.’ 

He pounced then, grasping me by the arm and pulling me into the room to stand near the light, taking my chin and turning my face. I closed my eyes, but he shook my shoulder and demanded that I look at him. 

‘Open your eyes, Holmes, let me see. How much? You are walking at least. Do you not understand what this stuff can do to you? This is not justified, even for the case, Holmes. Where the devil have you been, and with whom?’ 

I could have lied. Perhaps I should have lied, but I would not lie to him. I opened my heavy lids, submitted to his examination. His face was so close to mine, his own dear eyes more anxious than angry. His hands were tender on my face, despite his sharp words. I swayed closer to him, desperate to touch. 

‘No’ I admitted, the words thick and heavy on my tongue. ‘It was not for the case. I went with Dupré. To an opium den, yes. In Limehouse, somewhere. He became intoxicated: I, as you see, did not. I took him to his house in a cab,’ Watson growled, low under his breath, ‘and then I walked home. I am as you see me, Doctor. Elevated, perhaps, but not intoxicated.’ 

‘Elevated! You are a damned fool,’ he told me, tone hard, and hands gentle as he led me to a chair and deposited me there. I uttered a protest when he left my side, but he had gone to fetch the coffee jug. ‘Sit there, you foolish fellow and I will heat the dregs of this coffee. You are a thrice-damned idiot, Holmes, to wander the streets of this filthy city under the influence of drugs. Anything might have happened to you. And as for Dupré, I shall be speaking to him: what is he thinking of? A fellow twice your age to lead you astray, to entice you into such a place. He will know his own damned place when I have spoken to him, by God he will. I shall have such words with the damned fellow that he will regret he ever . . .’ He broke off, and brought me the coffee, which he had warmed by turning the glass jug over the fire before pouring its contents into a glass. “Drink this, Holmes. It is not remotely palatable, but you must have a stimulant. I have smoked Mrs Hudson’s jug in the fire; oh, I shall catch it tomorrow. It is of no matter. Drink, I say.’ 

I drank, mouthing clumsily at the glass which he held to my lips. The initial stimulation of the opium had worn off, and I was entering the drowsy phase, that dream-ridden haven where men sink, and rise no more. 

‘I’ve not smoked much,’ I whispered, closing my eyes. ‘Only a mouthful, Watson, dear Watson. Only to chase the dreams away. You know I have dreams, Watson. I have such dreams . . .’ 

***** 

I woke the next morning in my bed, my head throbbing, my stomach uneasy, and a foul taste in my mouth. I had been stripped to my underwear, and put on my side under the blankets, in such a manner that should I vomit I would not choke myself to death. As I stirred, protesting the light assaulting my closed eyelids, a firm hand helped me to sit, and guided me back against banked pillows. My hand was wrapped round a glass, and I drank, greedily, spilling down my chin. 

‘Have you been here all night?’ I asked. Shame now, not nausea, twisted my gut. ‘I do not deserve such kindness. I am so very sorry, pray do forgive me, Watson.’ 

‘Hush,’ he said then. ‘There is nothing to forgive.’ He wiped my chin, took the glass away, and handed me a cup. ‘Drink your coffee, Holmes. Yes, I was angry last night. You were foolish, and also very fortunate that there was no worse outcome to your indiscretion. But you are not the first young man to fall foul of the demon of opium, and you will not be the last. Nor are you the first fellow by whose bedside I have watched in such circumstances: there were wild young men enough in Kandahar.’ 

‘You speak as if you were some wise greybeard,’ I protested. ‘We are not so very far apart in age, are we?’ 

‘In age, no, in experience, yes,’ he said. ‘I have been about the world a little more than you, my friend. You might have been robbed last night, assaulted, even,’ and his hand pressed my shoulder. ‘You ran a risk that I would not have thought you capable of. What possessed you, Holmes? You have seemed – disturbed these last few days? Is it the case? If so, I confess, it disturbs me, also. We have not had much time to discuss it, what with our analyses, and my work: perhaps we should do so.’ 

‘It is the case,’ I admitted, there being nothing else to which I could admit. ‘And I would be glad to talk about it. You are not at Barts today?’ 

‘I sent a telegram,’ he said, ‘and told them that I was unavoidably detained at home. I’m but a small part of their machine, Holmes, they can well manage without me for a day or so. You are more important, dammit! And I have sent a messenger round to Guy’s, informing them that you will not be there today either. Mrs Hudson has drawn you a bath, and there is plenty of hot water so I shall leave you to it, old man. Are you feeling very ill? I cannot give you an opiate for the headache and pain, of course, but there is willow-bark tea if you wish it.’ 

I thanked him, and accepted. He left me then, and I buried my face in my pillow. All the time he had been talking I had been struggling for composure: he was so kind to me, so forgiving, so wholly gentle and generous and understanding. One sob, one, wrenched me. I stifled it, but my tears flowed silently as I bathed and dressed. When I finally regained control of myself, I knew that my face would be marked, but I cared not. I would offer him my shame as recompense for the lust of which he knew nothing, the weakness that had broken me, the unspoken words with which I still lied to him. I would allow him to see me as lesser, as flawed – I, who had so coveted his praise and respect, who had so desired to shine before him. It was fitting: a truly condign punishment. 

And yet, when we met at table over a late breakfast, there was no punishment. There was no shame. There was not even a reproach, for, as he told me, all reproaches were done. It was an error of judgement, he said, and God knew he had made many himself. He told me then in detail he had not before, of how he had himself struggled with taking morphine, how in pain from shattered shoulder and broken thigh he had begged and pleaded for relief, whimpered like a child before the blessed numbness overtook him, sunk eagerly into the morphine dreams, until he had come to his senses to find himself healed, but at the point of addiction. He had himself taken charge of his own recovery, tapering the dose off over weeks and months, sternly denying himself relief from pain, bearing the sleepless nights, the fevers, bone pains, nausea, the anxiety and low mood. 

‘And you have helped me with that,’ he told me. ‘You have been so kind to me, Holmes, a friend more true than a brother. I was so very low when we met, so hopeless and weary and hurt. So forlorn and despairing. I believe you knew that, did you not? I have always thought you knew.’ 

‘I did,’ I admitted. ‘I could see it in you. I . . .’ 

‘You need not hesitate to say it,’ He rose, and limped to the window, ‘Without you, it might not have been long before I had chosen the coward’s way out: better men than I have returned from war twisted and scarred, ruined beyond repair, only to choose their own deaths. You saved me from that: anything that I do for you is small in comparison. But Holmes, I beg you – Lamson is a horrible object lesson in what can happen. His case disturbs me beyond measure because I too am a doctor. I too was a soldier and wounded, and fell to the seductive charm of opium – or opiates at least. My God, they are an edged weapon: we cannot do without them, yet to have to do with them is perilous. I have seen men in such pain, shattered, broken, dying, aye, and women in the throes of cross-births, or children retching and tormented with fatal obstructions, and I have put my hand to the laudanum bottle or the syringe, and dosed them into absence of pain, when I could do nothing more for them. Even this wretched murdered cripple, this Percy John, was given morphine in his last extremity, as the aconite burned through him- ’ He stopped, and I heard him swallow hard. ‘But I have also felt for myself how hard it is to resist when once you become accustomed. I have seen the emaciated, drugged addicts of Limehouse, the children of the poor, their eyes luminous with opium-starvation, their bellies swollen with want, and not just here, but in India. Oh Holmes, Holmes, if you had seen what I have seen . . . I beg you, my dear, dear friend, do not fall into that trap. Why, why did you go last night? What cause can you have to use such a substance? Was it curiosity? Idle fancy? Need? What drove you there?’ 

I could not tell him, of course. I could not tell him the real reason. He would leave me – all, all would fall to ruin. But I could not lie, not to him. 

‘I cannot tell you,’ I said. ‘I cannot, not now. But I will, Watson. If you could trust me a little, and not use me harshly – if you could wait a little, I will tell you. Can you wait a little? I will promise not to go there again if you want me to promise.’ 

He told me then that of course he would wait, that if I had confidences, he would not force them. That he had no right to demand any promise of me, and therefore would not do so, but that he was glad to hear I would not go back. That if I felt the need, any need, I was to come to him ‘for addiction can be swift to set in, Holmes: you must be vigilant,’ and he would aid me. And he asked me whether the case distressed me too much, whether it would be better to withdraw, ‘for your constitution is a nervous one. Vigorous and powerful of its kind, but nervous. I have seen the reaction on you after a case, when you have expended energy to the point of exhaustion. Opium is not the answer, however, and I desire as your physician that you should not attempt to make it one.’ 

I vowed to him that I would not, and admitted that the case distressed me. ‘It is partly that he is a doctor and a soldier, like you. Yet you stand, as it were, at the antipodes of such a position, or rather you at the zenith, he at the nadir. It is very terrible to me when a good man goes astray. The brutes of Spitalfields or Limehouse, the denizens of our prisons, they are in great part, what their circumstances have made them. Bred foully, they do foully, since they know no better. They have souls, yes, as we do, but brutalised from birth by this society we live in, they are lower than the brute beasts. Beasts at least act bestially after their kind: they are moved by need, not greed. Man is a corrupt thing, a fallen angel.’ I stopped then, unable to go on, my head spinning, my heart beating painfully hard in the reaction from the drug. 

Watson moved to assist me, helping me from the chair to lie upon the sofa. He covered me with an old worn afghan of ours, and when I would have spoken, laid a finger to my lips. ‘Hush now. You must neither exert nor excite yourself, but lie here until these palpitations subside. You are a poor subject for drugs, Holmes, you are too volatile as it is. Not another word out of you for an hour, and you must try to sleep again, please.’ 

I did indeed feel ill, unusually so: perhaps my abstinence had rendered the drug more powerful. I closed my eyes, and endeavoured to rest, but then I heard him move from my side. 

“Watson?’ I asked. ‘Where are you going? Are you leaving me?’ 

He made a funny little tutting noise, an unworded negation. ‘Of course I am not leaving you. I am fetching Winwood Reade, sitting here, and perusing it as you bade me. When you are rested we will walk together, putting the world to rights as we do so, and for the rest of today we will not think of the case. Let tomorrow’s evil be the evil of tomorrow: today we will rest, and you will recover. And I shall not embarrass you in front of Dupré, Holmes, but tomorrow he will be hearing my mind on the iniquity of leading young men into opium dens. I doubt Stevenson himself would be happy to hear of him going to such a place, especially when we are engaged in a matter of such importance. What if he let slip something pertinent to the case?’ 

***** 

Whatever Watson said to Dupré, it served to warn him from me. He treated me with correct courtesy thereafter, and there were no more lunches with only the two of us. He and I, with Stevenson and Bond, continued our analyses of the suspected materials taken from the room of Percy John. Of the twenty numbered quinine powders Lamson had put up for him in the summer (when he had been ill at Shanklin after taking the quinine capsule Lamson had given him) while the six larger powders were innocuous, and some of the fourteen smaller powders numbered 7 to 20 contained only quinine as expected, papers 16, 18, and 20 contained enough aconitine in each to kill. It was clear that Lamson had made previous attempts on the boy’s life, first by directly offering him pills, then by sending him ‘tonic powders’ some, but not all, of which were doctored with the poison. It then became necessary to determine from which apothecary or chemist Lamson had obtained this aconitine, which was of different formulation from that found in the stomach, urine and viscera after the poor lad’s death. I offered to pursue enquiries down in Bournemouth where Lamson had resided at the time, and accordingly, at the beginning of February, Watson and I were asked to slip quietly down there from London. There was so much excitement about the case, because of its horrible nature, that the gentlemen of the press watched Lestrade, Stevenson, Bond and Dupré wherever they went. It was logical, therefore for Watson and I to go. I had insisted that my name did not appear at all in connexion with the investigation (this to mollify the tetchy Stevenson, who was jealous of his professional honour) and so my involvement and of course Watson’s, was quite unknown. 

‘Watson, what shall we do about rooms?’ I asked him, the morning after this was decided. ‘It should be somewhere quiet, and out of town for preference, so we are not remarked. There are bloodhounds hot on the trail of anything to do with this case, and Stevenson wants us to investigate discreetly.’ 

‘Lestrade recommends an inn - The Ragged Cat at Boscombe. It is two miles out of Bournemouth, still quite rural and remote, and near to the new Spa. If need be, we can be a gentleman in ill health – that is you, Holmes - and his medical attendant. He has offered to see to it for us, since his division will be paying. It will not be luxurious, but I daresay it will do for a couple of nights. He told me yesterday that he would wire down to make arrangements, so if you pack your valise, we will take the train directly after luncheon. I must run into Barts this morning – I have patients to see after – but I can meet you at Waterloo Station in time for the three-thirty. I am afraid it is generally considered a slow route, but at least our train does not stop until Southampton. And Lestrade has wired for a carriage to be at our disposal from Bournemouth to Boscombe, and for running about the town. I asked him if we needed an introduction to the local police, but he said not.’ 

‘My life is infinitely easier with you to assist me, Watson,’ I remarked, and was gratified to observe him colour up with pleasure. ‘No small difficulty, but you are there to smooth it out; no arrangement to be made, but I find it is already in hand. You are a jewel among companions.’ 

‘Flattery,’ he observed sternly, ‘will get you nowhere, Holmes. You are fretting yourself into a fiddlestring with this case, and I shall be glad to get you away from that poisonous atmosphere at Guy’s.’ I knew by his look that he did not refer simply to the miasmatic air in that close room, but to the stench of moral and spiritual degeneration that surrounded the whole sorry affair. ‘Two nights in the quiet of the country will rest and restore you. What are those lines of Cowper’s? ‘Rural sounds exhilarate the spirit, and restore the tone of languid nature.’ Well, we will enjoy our rural sounds, and I trust your languid nature will return both exhilarated and restored to this dispiriting metropolis.’ 

‘It is more likely to return exasperated and resentful,’ I teased him. ‘if ‘ten thousand warblers cheer the day’ from first light to dusk. Although it is also more likely to be the prosaic cockerel that cheers the day, rather than a delicate warbler, Watson, and very early indeed. But I shall expect you not to mind it, lover of nature that you are.’ 

He laughed, picked up his modest valise, clapped me on the shoulder, and went to his work with a spring in his step and a smile. I packed, soberly, not forgetting his injunction to take a muffler, ‘for the air is chill in the evenings.’ If truth be told, I was wild to be away. The one taste of opium had re-awakened the craving, and I was hard beset at times. It stood before me, an Apollyon in my way, and like Christian battling the foul fiend, I was wounded, and weary and spent. Watson guarded me well, albeit unknowing the demon from which he guarded me, ever alert to my moods, ever ready to amuse or beguile, or suggest. As yet, I had not told him how long standing a war this was, or that he had seen only a minor skirmish in the campaign I waged against myself. 

The train was half an hour late departing. The trains were always late, and slow from Waterloo, indeed, the less than affectionate sobriquet for the London and South Western Railway was ‘the Long Slow Way Round.’ We had a carriage to ourselves, there being few people travelling at that time, and I was glad of it. It was a dull day, the houses and hills we passed fading into washes of grey as the light dimmed. Watson drew the blinds down, and lit the gas early, and sat reading, while I fidgeted, and shifted in my seat. For I had resolved – I had almost resolved – I was nearly wanting to – tell him about the morphia, yet I was so terribly afraid. I had stood for a long time looking at my morocco case, before packing it. It would be the easiest way to tell him. But I was not sure I dared. And so I shifted, and, I daresay, sighed. 

‘Holmes,’ he remonstrated, eventually, casting aside his paper. ‘You fidget like a dog with a flea, old man, and puff like a grampus. I know it is a tedious journey, but have you nothing to occupy you? Shall I read to you? Or do you wish to talk? I have been unsociable enough to bore you, it is true.’ 

‘No,’ I said. I would put it off no longer. ‘It is only - ’ I rose, and fetched my case down from the rack, unstrapped and opened it. ‘It is this, Watson.’ And I placed the morocco case into his hands. ‘Open it. It is the, the answer to a question you asked me, a little while ago, and I promised to answer when I could.’ 

He looked hard at me, I think to determine if this was some jest. Then slowly, very slowly, he opened the case. What he thought to see, I knew not, but it was not that, for his brows drew together, and he looked first at the syringe and apparatus, then at me, then back at the case again. He took up the syringe, observed it closely, smelt it, and then laid it down beside the small strip of cloth I kept tucked under it. This he took up and twisted round his own arm, testing its strength before replacing it, and closing the case. ‘Holmes?’ was all he said. 

He knew. He wanted me to tell him it was not true, but I could not. Instead, I divested myself of my coat and jacket, unbuttoned my shirt cuffs, and rolled my sleeves above my elbows. I held out my arms, baring them for his inspection. I believe my hands were quite steady, but his were not. 

He supported my left arm with one hand, drew the fingers of the other down over my skin from the tender inside of my elbow to my wrist, then retraced his steps, lingering on the marks. ‘You had an abscess here, and here. Your needle missed the vein here. But these marks here, and here, and here,’ gently pressing them, ‘these marks are clean. You clean the needles, with rubbing alcohol, I presume. And make up the solution fresh each time? This vein has collapsed, you will not be able to use it again.’ He shivered then; I felt it go quite through him, communicating itself to me through his fingers. He let my arm rest gently on my knee, then took up my other arm. ‘Another abscess was here. You lance them yourself, do you not? No trained surgeon would cut like that. And dress them? Do you use fomentations to bring the matter to a head and purge it? They should not be too hot: your skin is delicate, and you have abused it. A warm kaolin poultice would serve you better. None of these marks is very recent: but you have been using the needle for some years. When was the last time?’ and as I opened my lips to reply, ‘No, it is of no matter. It is within the time I have lived with you, that is clear. And I saw, but I did not _observe _as you often say: the more fool I. There now, I have seen what I need to. It is brave of you to trust me, my dear fellow. Thank you, Holmes.’ A single salt droplet fell on my left wrist. He wiped it away with his thumb in a small, caressing movement, then touched his hand to his eyes. ‘Forgive me.’ He drew my sleeves down, over my scarred arms, and buttoned them again, setting my cuffs to rights with precise, almost finicking movements. ‘Put on your jacket and coat again: it grows colder now.’__

I obeyed him silently, not daring to speak. The silence grew and grew between us, yawning, abyssal: a clamouring, terrible silence. I sat with my eyes cast down; he stared out of the window. The train drew into Southampton: passengers alighted, others ascended the train. We remained alone in our compartment. With huge groans from the engine and clanking of wheels, we moved again. It was an upward gradient: the labouring vehicle strained, toiling to make headway. It was now fully dark outside. 

I could bear it no longer. ‘Watson,’ I pleaded. ‘Speak to me.’ 

‘I do not know what to say,’ he said. ‘I have so many questions, both as your doctor, and your – friend, yet I do not know which to ask. Or whether I may ask any. Or if, by asking, I shall drive you back into yourself, and ruin all hope of confidence between us. I do not know what I may say, and what I may not.’ 

‘Anything,’ I said. ‘You may ask me anything, only do not be silent. Do not - ’ reject me, I was about to say, but the words dried in my throat. 

‘Perhaps – perhaps it will be easier if I do not ask, Holmes. As your friend, I would like to know how it began, if you felt you could tell me. And where, perhaps.’ 

‘I was quite young,’ I said. ‘At – at the university.’ My mind raced: would it be possible to tell my tale without revealing myself completely? It might, if I chose my words carefully. ‘It is a long story, but – I was foolish, and also lonely. I chose my friendships – friendships, forsooth: there had been but one - poorly, and spoiled them, and I paid a price. The morphia was part of it.’ 

‘Then you shall tell me that story if you want to, Holmes, and I will listen. I do not like to think of you lonely. As your doctor . . .’ 

‘As my doctor, you wish to know what strength. And how, and how often. I use the proportions for Keyes’ solution – you are aware of it, of course?’ 

‘Two hundred and fifty-six grains of morphine sulphate, eight grains of salicylic acid in sixteen fluid ounces of distilled water,’ he recited, as if by rote. ‘I daresay you have the very book that I do, Holmes – Kane, of New York, upon the hypodermic injection of morphia? Published but two years ago?’ and on my silent assent, ‘I expected no less of you: you are a scientist. I am glad at least you do not use the muriate or acetate of morphia, they are more –dear God in heaven, what am I saying? Glad! Of course I am not glad. It is only that the sulphate is more stable – less acidic and damaging. Oh, I cannot think– Holmes, my dear Holmes, if you have read Kane’s book . . . you must know . . .’ 

‘I do. I – I have much diminished my usage, I assure you, since reading it. I was never in the habit of taking more than twelve to sixteen grains in the twenty-four hours, so I do not believe it was so bad, but . . .’ 

‘The greatest therapeutic dose is one and a half to two grains.’ he said, passing a hand over his eyes. ‘In case we find a marked idiosyncratic response, we are advised to start with one sixteenth, or even one thirty-secondth, of a grain in those new to the drug. Or so I do, anyway. Let be on whatever dose you take: we will discuss it later. How often?’ 

‘I generally take a dose at night,’ I confessed, feeling more low and wretched by the moment. ‘To quiet my – to calm me before I sleep. So I can sleep.’ 

‘Every night? Not quite? Most nights, then. And you have never thought to see a physician? About the insomnia?’ 

‘N-No. I - I do not know any.’ 

‘Which is to say, you will not. Holmes, I think there is more here than I can tease out in a damned railway carriage – damn it, of all the places to tell me this – could you not have chosen a better? Or was it that you had me captive, so that I could not run away? I should not act as your physician, being your friend – yes of course I am still your friend, my dear fellow, always and ever your friend, and I shall not run away. When will you believe me, when I say my own weaknesses have taught me not to judge? As Burns says, ‘what’s done we partly may compute, but know not what’s resisted.’ I do not know your demons, only my own. Oh, dear God above, I am no good at this – oh for a woman’s touch, for a woman’s gentleness . . . I am a mere man, all unaccustomed to this depth: I have no delicacy of touch with the soul’s ills. But I will do my best, I swear to you. Although, as I said, I should not act as your physician, being your friend . . .’ 

‘You must,’ I told him. ‘For I will have none other. And I should not talk to you at all if you were a woman, Watson. I can barely talk to you as it is.’ 

The train slowed, then stopped. ‘We are at Ringwood,’ he observed. And that was all he said, for our carriage was invaded by a jovial farmer and his wife, who conversed with Watson until Bournemouth was reached. He had moved from opposite to beside me on their entry, offering them, with his usual courtesy, the opportunity to be seated together. He removed his scarf, folded it, and bade me rest my head on it and try to doze, telling the couple that I was inclined to headache and nausea in trains, and had better not talk. He did not address me thereafter, but the comfort of his solid bulk was against my side as he chatted quietly and comfortably with them about the weather and the price of cattle. Eventually, we reached our destination, and tumbled out, stiff and sore from long sitting, to find our carriage waiting. Of course we could not converse then either, and it was not until we were settled before the fire in the parlour Lestrade had reserved for us, that we renewed our discourse. And all the while, he treated me with the most courteous, reverent gentleness, the softest, most respectful manner. I hated it - could not bear it. 

‘I wish you would not – not step around me like this,’ I complained. ‘You are treating me like an invalid, Watson. As if I am some puling, green-sick maiden, or some delicate child. Rail at me, scold me. Dislike me, hate me even, but do anything but this. I feel as if I shall never hold my head up again with you. Do you think me so weak now, so unworthy of respect?’ 

‘Never,’ he told me, his tone suddenly fierce. ‘Never. It is not that. I respect you no less; you are no less a friend.’ 

‘Then what?’ 

‘I am angry.’ 

‘With me? You have every right: you have been living with a degenerate, a man who uses drugs, a confirmed opium-eater, as it were. A man who has contracted a morphia habit.’ 

‘No, with myself, that I did not observe the signs in you.’ 

‘I did not wish you to, therefore you did not. I am practised at hiding, like all addicts.’ 

‘Are you an addict?’ 

‘An habitué then. I can give it up: there are periods when I do not use it.’ 

‘But the craving is still there?’ And when I did not answer. ‘The craving is still there, Holmes?’ 

‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘It is – I was taking it regularly during most of last year, and the beginning of this: A nightly dose. Earlier last year, perhaps more than a nightly dose. Perhaps twice a day.’ 

‘I thought you sunk in depression at times, with no cases, but it was this then? You used it to medicate your boredom.’ He said it as if he had just realised this fact. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘And what made you stop?’ 

‘This wretched case of the poisoner, Lamson. Seeing what he had become. Watson, I found myself thinking that, that I could, as he did, and Kane suggests, combine atropia with the morphia. That it would counteract the effect on the pupils. That – and then I realised I was setting myself up for a course in deception, as had he. Planning to conceal my use. There was no monetary temptation in my case, no financial irregularity to hide, none of his desperation. But there might have been. I might have become even as he. So I stopped my nightly soporific.’ 

‘Suddenly? Without tapering the dose? It is no wonder you have been restless, and unsettled then. But then you accompanied Dupré to the opium den?’ 

‘My need was strong that night. The circumstances – my situation: the need that drove me to take morphia in the first place. It was strong.’ 

‘And that you have not explained.’ He rose and yawned, stretched. ‘Holmes, I am your friend. If you wish to tell me, then I wish to know all, so that I can help you to the best of my ability. It is late, but there will be a moon tonight. I propose a light supper, a brief walk, and then we should retire. There are two beds in my room: will you share my barracks tonight, as if we were true comrades in arms together? It is easier, sometimes, to offer a confidence so: darkness can be kind. And you shall tell me whatever you wish. For tomorrow, we must be on the trail again, and it would be as well to have put this somewhat to rest.’ 

So it was in the kindly darkness, as we lay together and apart on our narrow pallets, the moonlight chequering the room in black and silver, that I told him of Victor Trevor. Of how I had been an unsociable fellow at college, always fond of moping in my rooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so I never mixed much with the men of my year. He already knew that bar fencing and boxing, I had few athletic tastes, and that my line of study was quite distinct from that of the other fellows, so that we had had no points of contact at all. 

‘Were you very lonely, Holmes?’ he interjected softly at this point in my story. 

‘If I was, I did not know it,’ I told him. ‘I was always a solitary child.’ I did not tell him of Mycroft, or of my parents. ‘Perhaps I did not wish to know it. I used to look at the other fellows from afar, wondering what lack it was in me that made me so apart, but I could never bring myself to join them, and they appeared to accept my isolation. A self-imposed isolation, I see that now. Perhaps they would have been friendly enough, had I been more forthcoming.’ 

‘So you were solitary, my poor friend. Pray continue, if you wish it.’ 

‘If you do not find me tedious,’ I confessed then, ‘It is a curious relief to speak.’ 

‘You are never tedious. Go on, Holmes.’ 

‘Victor Trevor, then. His bull terrier froze onto my ankle one morning, as I went down to chapel. The bite festered, as they do: I could do nothing but wait out the healing. I was laid by the heels for ten days but he used to come in to enquire after me. At first it was only a minute, but soon his visits lengthened, and before the end of the term we were close friends. He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and energy, the very opposite of me in some respects. We had some subjects in common – the natural sciences – and it was a bond of union between us, when I found that he was as friendless as I.’ 

I related then to Watson, as earth turned, and the moon-shadows shifted across us, the events he later chronicled in the ‘Adventure of the Gloria Scott.’ What I could not, and did not say to him was that I had desired Victor. Nay, I had thought myself in love with him, insofar I was then able to feel love, not with a tenth of the passion I felt for Watson, but with all I was then capable of. Although my youthful desires had been sufficiently stirred for me to be aware of my own feelings, it was not until Victor that I truly understood that as a man I was, and ever would be, incapable of desiring a woman, that I was a congenital invert. It was then that I had turned to morphia to quell the cravings of my flesh, to ensure that I remained hidden, for Victor would never have countenanced anything of the sort between us. ‘Beastliness’ he called it, or ‘being spoony’ and maintained that such softness had no place between men, but was the mark of a weak and degenerate character. I could not tell Watson this, that I had longed, and desired, and forbidden myself from thought and deed with my evil demon’s help. Instead, I allowed him to infer that the events of the elder Trevor’s death, the guilt of my feeling that I had, in some sort contributed to it either by deducing imperfectly, or deducing anything at all, had driven me into a deep depression compounded by renewed loneliness. 

‘So I entered my second year even more solitary than before,’ I told him. ‘Trevor had departed for the tea-planting at Terai. We’d met once since his father’s death, a stiff, dry meeting, to put the world between us. He bade me goodbye, and told me to forget him. I promised I would. He wanted no more of me, blamed me, it was clear, for what had happened. I fell, that autumn, into a deep depression. As I said, perhaps I had not realised I was lonely before, but my only friend once departed, the solitude I had cherished weighed on me more and more heavily. I had been prescribed morphia for the dog bite: to an analytical chemist it was not difficult to deduce the formula, prepare the drug, and inject it. You may, perhaps have wondered why I never took my degree: there is the reason. Some of my fellows, more puritanical, or perhaps more envious of my academic success – for I was successful in my field - than the rest, took it upon themselves to inform the Master of my drug-taking. There were many who indulged, or experimented, in secret, and unrebuked, but once he was formally brought to notice it, he could do nothing but send me down. My family wanted nothing to do with me, gave me enough to enable me to scrape a living, and so I wandered on, through bad, and worse, and a few better days, in increasing despair at ever improving my mode of living, until I asked Stamford whether he might know of anyone who wanted to share rooms, and he brought me you, Watson.’ 

‘Perhaps to the salvation of both of us,’ he murmured. His hand reached across the gap between us, and I put mine to meet it. We clasped hands for a moment; then I released him, as I knew I must. 

‘I cannot think what to do now,’ he told me. ‘I must settle what is consonant with my duty as a physician, and my duty as a friend. But we are still friends, Holmes, and that you may hold to. You must decide for yourself, what you take and when. I would rather you did not take it at all, although I know that would be hard.’ He paused, reached across, and patted my shoulder. ‘Do you think you can sleep, Holmes, now? Is your mind easier? I will help you all I can, be sure of it.’ 

‘Yes,’ I whispered to him, while my traitorous body burned at the thought of him so near. ‘Yes, my mind is easier, thank you, Watson.’ 

***** 

In the morning, all was friendly between us: no hint in Watson’s demeanour of those confidences of the night before. Yet all was changed, too: there are some conversations which leave a mark, which move a friendship to a different level of intimacy, a level that there is no retreating from. He had acknowledged his dependency on me, and I on him, in a manner very unlike most men who have not fought long together, or who are not tied by bonds of blood. It would rest unspoken now, between us, but it would be there, and it gave me a little – a very little- hope. 

In any case, during the whole of the day – and it was a foul, wet, windy day, such as only January can throw at the unfortunate inhabitants of these shores - we pursued the tangled threads of Lamson’s aconitine purchases. We unravelled, as well, his dealings with the pawnbrokers, bailiffs, and financial agents of the town where he had gone to make a name for himself as a war hero and promising young medic, and found only disgrace. It was a deeply saddening and dirty process, and I would, as I said to Watson, have preferred a good clean stabbing any day. 

‘I cannot work out,’ said he to me, as we returned for our second night at the Ragged Cat, ‘whether the addiction preceded the business failure, or was subsequent to it, or concomitant with it. This is a man who returned with honours, so it is said, from the war. Who saved lives. Who married well, a good woman, of property and bought a practice, where he might do some good in the world, in an up-and-coming little town. Yet all, all, is thrown away, and there is no doubt but that he murdered that young man, his brother in law. What is it, Holmes, that drives one man so far down the road to destruction, when another travels the high road to success? Is it character? Upbringing? Chance? Why am I not as he? Why are not you?’ 

‘Perhaps I am not so very far from him, degenerate that I am,’ I murmured. ‘Watson, I am tired of this case. My throat is sore and my head buzzing: I want to go home. We have found out all there is to find out in Bournemouth; I have been certain of how the poison was administered for some short while now, and if your idiot colleague Stevenson has not found it out by the time we have returned, I shall tell him tomorrow, and be shot of it. For I am sick and tired of everything.’ 

‘This is the merest irritation of nerves, and yes, you are going to have a heavy cold,’ he scolded me. ‘You are not in the least like this wretched murderer, Holmes. You take morphia, yes. That is the only point of similarity between you, yet you are becoming positively morbid on the subject, and I will hear no more of it. Unless you wish me to find some aconitia for you, and to offer myself as your murder subject so you can indulge yourself with some genuine reason for these doleful recriminations? Would you be satisfied with that? And if you know how Lamson administered the dose to young Percy John, and have not told us, it is wrong of you, old chap. Stevenson has been wearing himself to a thread-paper with his distillations and acidifications and washings with ether, and reductions of this and that. How long have you known?’ 

‘It was only proved to me the day before we came down here,’ I admitted. ‘I had theorised, but the proof came only when I finally persuaded Bond to give me the bottle of stomach contents that Stevenson, despite my pointing him in that direction, has repeatedly ignored in favour of his urinalyses, and his dissections of the viscera for lesions, and his poking about with the damned capsules and quinine powders. We know Lamson tried on several occasions to poison his brother in law, but Stevenson has only succeeded in proving that, not how the fatal dose was given. If he had not been in such an all-fired hurry to send us down here, I would have told him yesterday. It is his own fault he has had to wait for his explanation. And so will you have to wait,’ I added. My tone was querulous, and I did not care, for I was thoroughly out-of-sorts, but he simply laughed at me. 

‘Holmes, you are truly vile when you are ill: never was a man less patient than you. Retire to your bed, for heaven’s sake, and I shall ask the good woman of this house to bring you a toddy and a bowl of soup.’ 

‘What will you do?’ I was shaken by a series of sneezes, and forced to bury myself in the linen square he handed me. ‘Are you going to desert me, now I am ill?’ 

He handed me another five handkerchiefs. ‘Here. Pitch them in the fire when you are done with them: I cannot bear them hanging around damp and be-slimed. Yes, I thought I would go to the tap-room, and consort with the locals. No, Holmes, of course I am not going to desert you. I am going to eat my soup in your room with you, drink my own toddy, and then retire to my own, rather less infectious, atmosphere. Although you have probably already given that cold to me, damn you.’ 

I would have thanked him then, but could not, for the sneezing. I was sure he understood, despite my inability to speak. 

***** 

The triumph of my exposition of how Lamson had poisoned his brother in law was very sadly lessened by that cold. It was hard to sound impressive, when one’s throat appeared to have been sand-papered, and every second sentence was punctuated with positively stentorian explosions. Stevenson was clearly quite horrified by the violence of the infection, and I was certain afterwards that he had barely listened, so occupied was he in wincing every time I erupted. 

‘The crucial issue of this case was that the capsules and powders and all of that business with the sugar – those powders handled on the third of December, when Lamson visited his brother in law – they all constituted an elaborate charade,’ I told the persons assembled at Scotland Yard. ‘Lamson arrived to see Percy on that evening. He conversed with Mr Bedbrook, the headmaster of Percy’s school, and the two men took wine together, Bedbrook offering Lamson a sherry. Lamson made some comment that was immediately suspicious: he asked for sugar ‘to take off the alcoholic effect of the sherry’, and mixed a spoonful into his glass. _Watson, another handkerchief, if you please. Thank you._

Now that is ridiculous, in fact, since sugar in sherry has no such effect, not to mention being the ruination of a fine amontillado or palo cortado. He then produced from his bag, we are told, a Dundee cake, and some crystallised fruits, which were shared out. Now you, Stevenson, contended, that since all shared in these, they could not be the vehicle for the poison. But mark what Lamson does next. He produces, from his bag, a small packet of the new-fangled gelatine capsules, which are coming into use for delivering powders: while these may easily be prised apart, filled and re-closed, thus encapsulating any unpalatable powder within, the process of deglutition renders the gelatine flexible and soft, it further dissolves in the acids of the stomach, and the drug thus delivered is imparted to the system without – _dear me, another handkerchief, please, Watson, and if you would be kind enough to dispose of this one? Thank you, dear fellow, and do not neglect your own needs _– without, as I was saying, any unpleasant taste.__

Lamson proceeds to demonstrate this process; opening a capsule, filling it with sugar from the communal bowl using a small spade spoon, closing it, and handing it to Percy to take, which he dutifully does. Lamson is thus enabled - _a third handkerchief, Watson, if you would be so kind _\- to claim, when the lad is dead, and poison is suspected, that it cannot be he who has done it, since the sugar came from the household store, Bedbrook saw the capsule filled himself, and thus can attest to the fact that nothing but the communal sugar went into it, and since Lamson, Bedbrook and Percy John all shared in the cake and fruit, none of those can be tainted.__

_Pray Watson, your flask, if I may, and another handkerchief. Thank you. _But mark the cunning nature of our murderer. It is said that Augustus, knowing his wife, Livia, to be an adept in poisoning, and fearing for his own life, would eat nothing but what his own hand had prepared, and no fruit that he had not picked from the tree: she therefore had recourse to smearing the poison on the fruit as it grew, and all unsuspecting, he plucked, ate and died. It appears to have escaped your notice, Dr Stevenson, but when Lansom produced his cake and sweetmeats, the cake was already cut. He could not poison the sugar plums, for they were offered at choice, but the cake he distributed with his own hand. It is therefore entirely probable that the cake was poisoned. _Pray, forgive me a moment, gentlemen. Watson, is there another handkerchief? A moment more only while I dispose of these. Thank you. _But not the whole cake, of course: only that piece which was offered to Percy John.____

In this flask, which I have, it is fair to say, asked repeatedly - _very well, Watson, I will not go into that then _\- in this flask, the contents of which I have examined microscopically, I found, much triturated, the scant remains of a raisin, and some apple peel such as might be found in a Dundee cake. A Dundee cake, gentlemen, is rich enough to conceal the initial slight bitterness of aconite. And an extract from this flask, touched with the tongue, produces the characteristic bite of the drug we are looking for. Lamson injected the poison into the slice of cake he gave young Percy, Stevenson. Either that, or he removed a few raisins, soaked them in the tincture, and replaced them. Of course, by handing everyone cake, he ensured that the eating was general: the boy, seeing his head teacher eat of the cake himself, thought no harm, despite his former suspicions of Lamson, until the drug began to work in him. So there you have it, gentlemen. The numbered powders adulterated with aconitia, and the capsule that made young Percy so ill in the Isle of Wight last summer were all preliminary attempts: rehearsals, if you like, for murder. The real culprit was not the capsule so ostentatiously filled, presented and swallowed, but the cake. ____

And now if you will excuse me gentlemen – Stevenson, Bond, I wish you a very good day and all the credit of a successful case: I care for none of it. M’sieur Dupré, mes félicitations: il est bel, votre garçon, comme le chanson: mais soyez prudent qu’il soit aussi bon pour vous, parce’ qu’il y a quelques beaux chanteurs qui ont bien maîtrisé leur chantage, croyez-vous. Lestrade, if you will be kind enough to call tomorrow, Watson and I will be at your disposal for the paperwork, and I am certain Mrs Hudson can set covers for three for luncheon. Watson, my dear fellow, let us away to Gamages before we go home: we are down to our last dozen handkerchiefs.’ 

***** 

Lamson was convicted, on my evidence, and sentenced, on March 14th, to hang, still protesting his innocence. His friends in America, indeed the President himself, pleaded on his behalf, endeavouring to have the sentence reduced on the grounds of his insanity due to morphine addiction, but despite all the evidence adduced of his habitual use over long periods, and the awful effect it had on him, the sentence stood, and he was sent to the scaffold on April 28th. At my request, Lestrade made available to me the affidavits of his friends, and Watson and I read them together. His own account of his addiction greatly affected both of us: Watson because of the evidence he read of the man’s former courage in battle, and because he had once been, as Watson himself was, wounded, and had taken to the morphia to control pain, and to render himself able to work: whence followed, most tragically the addiction. For me, his description of the effects of the drug – the need to repeat injections to find relief from the drug wearing off, the physical and nervous afflictions peculiar to the addiction, and worse than anything else, the inability to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and the moral degradation that followed haunted my dreams for weeks. Watson woke me from them, as I was used to wake him. As I still did wake him, for the case brought back his dreams as well. 

I never met Lamson before he died. Watson, that good soldier, and good doctor, did. He visited him as a colleague in distress, and found him repentant, the withdrawal of the drug in prison having brought him back to his right mind. He confessed, at the last, maintaining that not he, but the morphia had acted. His friends ensured that his poor wife, who had clung to him throughout, refusing to believe that her kind husband could have killed her little brother, and his little daughter, were given new names, and sent to America, there to find new lives, and a modicum of peace. 

We did not need to say much to each other, Watson and I. The proverbs of Solomon speak of ‘a friend who is closer than a brother, a friend in a thousand.’ Watson was that man to me, and I to him thereafter. He was everything to me, tried, tested, true. He had not abandoned me when he knew of my weakness, but he would not condone it either. A word, a hint from me, that the demon called, and he was there, to walk with me, read with me. And when I fell, and I did fall, he was there: patient, kind as ever, to reach out his hand and lift me up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was conceived because there must have been a time when Watson became fully aware of Holmes' drug use, and I wanted to write that. I also wanted to find a case that might fit in to that time period when they were just learning about each other.
> 
>  Holmes asks the children - among whom is Kipling's Kim - where the guard (he means curator) of the Lahore museum may be found. Kim asks him where he is from, and he replies that he is from Kafiristan, now Nuristan. Inhabitants of that area often have green-grey eyes, apparently because many of Alexander the Great's soldiers left their DNA there. Holmes asks Kim his name, and he replies that he is called 'the Friend of the World'. He tells Holmes that the curator - he corrects Holmes here - is in the museum, and directs Holmes to follow him. Anyone who could correct my Hindustani would be a blessing, although I laboured long and hard over it. The chronology for Kim with Holmes' Great Hiatus just fits: Kim will meet Teshoo Lama in a couple of months.
> 
> The case of the Wimbledon Poisoning, and all the details therein about the murderer, Dr George Henry Lamson, are real, took place on the dates cited, and are as reported in the contemporary newspapers from December 5th 1881 to 30th April 1882. The depositions of the witnesses in the Old Bailey reports, and documentation from the murderer are real. Stevenson, Bond and Dupré are real people, and their analyses were really carried out, although I have given Holmes the credit for poor Stevenson's discovery of the cake.
> 
> Dr Anna Kingford, and her letter in the Morning Post of December 21st, are real. Watson's comments about the position of female doctors in England at this time are accurate. France or America were far more welcoming at this point: you may note that Anna is MD (Paris).
> 
>  It occurred to me as I was writing that both Holmes and Watson would have seen uncomfortable parallels with Lamson in their lives.
> 
> Watson quotes Cowper, with his 'rural sounds' statement, and Holmes caps his quote. Georgette Heyer aficionadoes may also recognise Kitty's Miss Fish quoting the passage to Freddy Standen from Cotillion.  
>    
> Holmes and Watson travel to Boscombe, which was then a tiny village two miles from Bournemouth, on February 4th. They were not quite successful in avoiding the observation of the press, since a tiny snippet in the Bournemouth Echo of February 6th says that London detectives had been visiting the town on business connected with the Wimbledon murder.
> 
>  The Ragged Cat was Boscombe's first coaching inn, dating from 1784. It underwent many metamorphoses, including being a drug den, and closed only a few years ago.
> 
>  Details about the train journey to Bournemouth, including the nickname for the LSWR, are accurate.
> 
> Holmes references Apollyon from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
> 
> In Holmes' and Watson's conversation about his morphia use, all information is accurate. Kane's 1880 book on the Hypodermic Injection of Morphia can be downloaded. It's terrifying. The formula for Keyes' solution is accurate, as are the dosages Watson quotes. Kane is very severe on the morphia habit.
> 
> Victor Trevor is, of course, from the Adventure of the Gloria Scott, but his heteronormativity and homophobia are those of Moses Jackson, when made aware of the poet A E Housman's deep love for him. In Holmes' account of his parting with Trevor, I have paraphrased Housman's poem 'Because I liked you better', published posthumously.
> 
> Holmes warns Dupré, whom he has deduced is having an affair with his manservant, in French: 'My compliments. He's beautiful, your boy, like in the song, (il est bel et bon: beautiful and good) but be careful that he's also good for you, because there are some fine singers who have mastered the art of singing well, believe me.' 'Chantage' , singing, also means blackmail.
> 
> Forgive the detail. My sister says it's because of my Virgo ascendant.


	5. Since First I Saw Your Face: Part 5.  I That Loved And You That Liked

**Since First I Saw Your Face: Part 5 ******

**Umballa, residence of Colonel Creighton of the Ethnographical Survey. ******

**‘What is it you want, Lala?’ Creighton’s voice is sharp, as, eyes narrowed, he observes the stooped, shabby figure of the old Sunnyasi before him. ‘I am a busy man. Is it food you desire? Go to my kitchen then.’ ******

**Holmes straightens his back, wipes his face with his sleeve, and removes his headdress. ‘A busy man, but with time for me perhaps? Forgive the disguise, Creighton. It would not have done for me to be remarked in my own form. Mahbub and A7 in Lahore warned me that Moran’s spies are everywhere.’ ******

**‘My God! It’s Sigerson!’ Creighton springs to his feet, wrings his visitor’s grimy hand. ‘Sigerson, man, where have you sprung from? We thought you lost in the fastnesses of Tibet. So you found Mahbub Ali? He was told to look for you in his travels.’ ******

**Holmes grimaces slightly at the use of his alias. It has been so long since he’s been Holmes. Sometimes he wonders whether there is anything left of Holmes., the consulting detective of Baker Street. So much has been stripped away. He has changed almost beyond his own recognition. ******

**‘I did, and came down to Lahore as groom to his Kabulis, sleeping with the horseboys.’ Holmes sniffs, and frowns. ‘And I still stink of horse. Of your mercy, Creighton, a bath before we speak of – other things. There is much I need to tell you: and Moran is behind all of it: in league with the Russians against you, steeped in infamy and treachery to his bones. If you do not take care, there will be bloodshed and rapine before long.’ ******

**‘But where have you been? We last heard of you a year and a half ago, in Tibet, at Gan-Den. We knew you had left, but then we lost you, caught only a rumour of you in Kafiristan. How in God’s name did you manage to get from Lhasa to Mahbub in Kabul? You must have traversed the length of the border!’ ******

**‘I did.’ Holmes sighs. ‘I have been closer to you here than you realise: had I come straight from Gan-Den you would have heard of me long since, but my journey took me further north, to Chitral and Parun: thence to Kabul and your Pathan spy. Cherish that man, Creighton: his cunning is unparalleled. Oh, dear God, but I am weary of walking. So weary of walking. And of asses that bite, and refractory horses, and wooden-wheeled carts.’ ******

**‘I will order a bath for you.’ Creighton rises to pull at an ornate rope. ‘Do sit, for heaven’s sake, Sigerson, you are exhausted. Sleep, eat, and we shall talk later. Ah, Ram Das, there you are. Find a room for Sigerson Sahib here: have water heated, and assign a boy to tend to him. No, wait – tend to him yourself, and inform the household that I shall not look kindly on idle talk. Go with him, Sigerson, we can talk later, when you have slept. You look entirely destroyed, man.’ ******

**‘Wait,’ Holmes tells the young man. ‘Creighton, is there any news for me from home? A7 said he had passed on information to you. What has m - My – has H1 sent? A – a telegram? A letter?’ ******

**‘A letter,’ Creighton opens a drawer. ‘You wish for it now?’ ******

**‘Yes, yes, now - and take these.’ Holmes dips into his ragged clothing and hands over a package swathed in dirty oiled silk. ‘The odour is repulsive, but you must forgive me for it, Creighton: I have slept with this next to my very skin, sweated on, bled on, repeatedly unsealed, added to, resealed, rewrapped, and re-sewn, for months, never letting go of it for fear of it falling into unauthorised hands. These are the fruits of my journey: I have encoded the writings for the most part, but the maps would have given me away. You know the key. I am glad to be rid of it: it has weighed heavy on my heart as well as my breast.’ ******

**‘Sigerson!’ Creighton takes the packet. ‘You are the prince of spies, man: my God, what it must have cost you. Here, here is your letter.’ ******

**‘Yes,’ Holmes pounces eagerly on the sealed sheet, rips it open, reads. ******

**There is a silence. ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I’ll have that bath now, Creighton. Thank you. We will meet at dinner then.’ ******

**But his voice is strained, and his hands tremble. ******

******* ******

**Once bathed, and clothed in cleaned robes, for he must still maintain his disguise, Holmes sits on his bed, turning the letter over and over in his hands. His face is wet. ******

**‘My dear Sherlock,’ Mycroft has written. ‘I am sorry to say that I can give you no very promising news of your friend, Watson. He has been forced of late almost to abandon his practice, which he has placed in the hands of one Anstruther, of whose probity I have grave doubts. His wife is in extremely poor health, and he tends her with patient assiduity, despite her coldness and, my informants tell me, her frequent and bitter reproaches for their poverty. There has been no child, and is now never likely to be one, for I fear she cannot live long. Watson himself is sadly thin, and your little band of Irregulars, as you call them, report that he rarely smiles, even when he attends them. They, and the other street arabs of your old acquaintance, are almost the only contact he has with people now. He has given up all work at Barts save for that in the free wards. I made an opportunity – such is the affection I bear to you, dear brother – to encounter him there. Watson looked gaunt and pale, clean, but shabby and worn. He was wearing an old blue overcoat that had clearly seen better days. I could see from his boots that he had walked from his home, and he had not been shaved that day. When he saw me, he turned away, but then appeared to recollect himself, and replied to my greeting. He enquired politely after my health, and that of our dear mutual friend, Melas, although he refused my invitation to dine quietly with us. His is the desperate, unbelieving sadness of a grieving widower: I do not doubt, however, that it is not his dying wife he mourns. I would have spoken of you, but he divined my intent, and his raised hand, his quivering lip and welling eyes, implored me to spare him. It was a subject, it was clear, too painful even to touch upon. I shall endeavour to keep a watch over him, but urge you, dear brother, to leave no stone unturned in your attempts to foil that adversary of ours and to return quickly, and ere it is too late, to the friend who yet mourns you with unshaken devotion. For the rest, the estate continues to . . .’ ******

**Holmes looks around, although he is quite alone, then touches his lips to each written reiteration of the word ‘Watson’. His tears flow, become strangled, gasping sobs. Curled into a weary knot, he allows his grief to overwhelm him. Eventually, he sleeps. ******

I That Loved And You That Liked . . . 

After my sad revelation, Watson and I went on quietly together for a few months. I endeavoured to diminish my morphia, tapering it off by little and little, but it proved difficult. On my suggestion, Watson began to administer my decreasing nightly dose to me, and then to lock away the drug and the syringe. It was a strangely intimate event: I bared my arm, he wiped my skin with alcohol, drew up the solution and showed me the amount, raised a vein and performed the injection with neat-handed ease. Afterwards, he would wipe my arm again before drawing the sleeve of my shirt or nightgown down and bidding me goodnight. There was an absent-minded affectionateness in his look when he did so; a soft, sure familiarity. I cherished the warmth of him near me, the scent of his skin, the touch of his strong, kind fingers. When he concentrated on the injection I could gaze my fill on him, learning him a piece at a time. The whorls of his ear, the way the muscles corded in his neck, the faint lines at the corner of his eye – they fascinated me to the point of obsession. I would never have enough of him. I needed to breathe him in as I needed air: without him I suffocated, breathless, dying. 

And he, in some way, needed me: that was my salvation. On his suggestion, the box in which we kept syringe and drug was closed with two patent padlocks, to one of which I held the key, while he held the other; thus neither of us could access the poison without the other’s consent. I had demurred, initially when he had asked me for this, but he had overruled me. 

‘We must guard each other, for I am not safe with it either, Holmes,’ he said, one morning at breakfast, showing me the box and padlocks. His eyes were haunted. ‘I do not want to put temptation in your way, but I cannot wholly trust myself, and last night I was very sorely tempted by it, after I had given you your dose. I – I am so weary of the ache-ache-ache of this damn shoulder, and the knife of pain that stabs my thigh, that I would willingly exchange my vigilance for intoxication and oblivion.’ He sighed. ‘I feel so damn old, Holmes. I am but thirty, and there are days when I walk like a rheumatic cripple. Halt and maimed, halt and maimed: what hope is there for me? Will I never be well? Will I never be as I was?’ 

I knew what he was driving at, but I could not answer. Stamford had married in the February, when we were still tied up with the Lamson case, and we had both snatched the time to attend his wedding. Even to my jaundiced view, his bride was, as Watson put it, ‘a bonny wee slip of a girl.’ With wide, china-blue eyes, and golden curls that owed nothing to chamomile wash or the twisting of night-time rags, she was a very doll: porcelain and fragile in her beauty. To be sure there was a certain tightness to her curved lip, and a firmness to her dimpled chin that presaged a shrewishness of disposition I could see she was currently reining in, but by all standards of our time, she was lovely indeed. 

Watson sighed wistfully from afar – too gentle, he, for envy – and on the occasional visit he had been allowed – for Stamford was kept on a meagre allowance of male companionship – came home full of their domestic comforts and inclined to acid animadversion on my propensity to mark furniture and carpet with the results of my experiments. I sighed wistfully also, but for different reasons. 

On this occasion, however, since he had complained, as he rarely did, of pain, I was ready with a thought to soothe it. April was drawing to a close with a tempestuous easterly, and I was not surprised his wounds hurt him. It was bitter chill, a dry, gnawing cold, with flurries of snow in the air. 

‘We might go to the Turkish bath, Watson, if you are so inclined? We have not been this age, not for six months, I believe, or nearly. Last year our poverty made it a rare indulgence, and since New Year we seem to have done nothing but work with the Yard. We are both rather more solvent now: would you not like to make it a regular thing? Their masseurs are exceptionally good, so perhaps with more frequent manipulation we could loosen those muscles that give you so much trouble.’ 

Greatly daring, I moved to stand behind him as he sat in his chair by the fire, ruefully contemplating the box of temptation in his lap. ‘Put that aside for a moment, my dear fellow. It is here that it hurts you most, is it not?’ I probed his shoulder with care, feeling through dressing gown and shirt. I had long since, with the help of an anatomy textbook, deduced his wound. The bullet had entered from the front – he was no coward, my Watson, to be shot in the back, fleeing from an enemy – piercing him under his clavicle, grazing the subclavian artery, and exiting through the scapula, ripping the infraspinatus muscle with it. The incompetent butchers who had treated him had laid torn muscle and flesh back together, stabilised the broken bone by binding the whole shoulder – I had asked Stamford about the treatment for such injuries – and left it to heal, but infection had set in back and front, and they had had to cut and cut to remove rot and proud flesh. It was a mangled ruin, a corrugated, seamed mass still raw and shiny in places. He did not yet have full sensation in all parts of it, or full movement of the shoulder joint, and as I manipulated it gently I could feel the pull and grind. He tensed under my touch. ‘Holmes?’ 

‘I am sorry,’ I snatched my hands away. ‘Forgive me. I hate to see you in such pain: I thought to see if I could ease it a little for you, like I was used to with our dogs, or my horse when I was a boy, but I will do more harm than good, I think. Let us go to the baths today, Watson, and someone more competent than I can work on it.’ 

‘You did not hurt me.’ He turned his head, looking up at me, and his smile was almost fond. ‘Of course I should have known that you would have some understanding of this as of other things. What did I say about you when first we met? “Knowledge of anatomy, accurate but unsystematic”? No, if I startled it was from surprise, that you seemed to know how it hurt me and how to ease it.’ He sighed and leaned forward, away from the back of the chair. ‘Yes, let us go later. I confess, I was hardly able to bear it last night. And I have not slept.’ 

‘Did – did I ease it?’ I laid my hands on his shoulder again, rocking him gently, and he relaxed into my touch, trusting and acquiescent as I worked on the knotted muscle to soften it. ‘There now, how is that?’ 

‘Good.’ He sighed again. ‘You have clearly missed your calling, Holmes, I doubt if a professional could do much better. But you had better stop, or I shall be asleep where I sit. I must go to see that unhappy man, Lamson, today – his execution is set for tomorrow – and then go to Barts, to walk the free wards and look after my waifs and strays. Later I have a couple of professional letters to write if we are going to the bath.’ He put up one hand, and patted mine as it lay on his shoulder. ‘Thank you, you are kinder to me than I deserve. What will you do today?’ 

I moved to sit in my own chair. ‘I am to consult with Lestrade yet again about the Yalding murder: the trial began yesterday. Do you know, Watson, I believe we have no hope of bringing that child’s death home to the perpetrator? The circumstantial evidence against Esther Pay is conclusive. The complete chain of events can be reasoned out and I am certain as I can be, as is Lestrade, that she did, in fact kill the child, Georgina Moore. All evidence save that which is essential – a positive identification – is there.’ 

‘Can no-one identify her with the child on the way to the place of the murder?’ 

‘The nearest approach to identification is at the earliest link of our chain, Watson. A boy who was at school with the child in the morning saw her with the accused in Pimlico the same afternoon. At least, he thought it was with Pay, and he picked her out at the police-station for Lestrade. But he was not so positive in front of the police magistrate, and anyway, it is perfectly possible that the child might have met Pay in the street early in the afternoon, and yet have been taken into the country by another woman. There is no evidence of the journey by train, but a flyman at Paddock Wood remembered being asked, "one afternoon about Christmas time," by a woman who had a child with her, what the fare was to Yalding. She was not willing to pay the price - four shillings - but she also said that she did not want to go by train, though the fare was only three pence. He could not say, however, whether it was Esther Pay he saw, or even whether the child was a girl.’ 

‘And is there nothing after that? It seems almost incomprehensible that a woman may walk off with a child in broad daylight, transport her a goodly distance into the country, by public transport no less, and then drown her in a river - the Medway river, hardly some hidden stream - all unremarked. It makes one shiver to see how easily it seems to have been done. Can you do nothing to bring it home to her, to bring the evil woman to justice, Holmes? For it was done out of spite, was it not?’ 

‘Indeed it was, to spite a man she hated, and whom she felt had wronged her. I fear I cannot. Esther Pay, or someone like her, was seen with the child at a public house near the station, at the right time. She, or someone in her image, was seen with a child about a quarter past four in the afternoon, on the day we surmise the murder took place, going towards Judd's Corner. Someone on the road to that damned river saw her, or a shape like her, with a child of Georgina Moore’s age. At another public-house on the road to Yalding, a woman resembling her was seen by the landlady and by a man in the house, and two other men saw a woman and child leaving the house and going towards Yalding. But not one of them, Watson, was able to identify the prisoner as the woman they had seen. They have all ‘not been sure’ or have been ‘unable to be certain’. Oh, it terrifies me to think that crime can go so unremarked. But as I have often mentioned to you, my dear fellow, people see, but they do not observe. Of circumstantial evidence, we have _un embarras de richesse _. But the jury cannot convict on circumstantial evidence: there must be proof positive, for so the law requires. And that I cannot find.’__

‘What of the place of the murder? Was there nothing there?’ Watson leaned forward in his eagerness, drawing his chair closer to mine so that our knees almost touched. His eyes were bright, intent: he was all soldier and hunter. ‘Holmes, surely such a simple woman – a murder so – so commonplace, lacking all, well, all intricacy, surely it cannot baffle you. Not that it is not very terrible,’ he amended, self-consciously, and I suppressed a smile at his conscientious recognisance that he might be forgetting the wretched little victim in his writer’s desire for the story. ‘Poor child, poor innocent, bewildered little child. It is so very sad.’ 

‘There is another public-house, where a somewhat nearer approach to the required evidence was made,’ I admitted. ‘The landlord, on a night which he was able to fix as that of December 20th, had served a woman, whom he believed to be Esther Pay, with some whiskey, and a child, whom, when shown a photograph, he said he believed to be Georgina Moore, with biscuits. But he had not thought about the matter till three months later, when a police serjeant had asked him whether he remembered a woman and child coming to his house; and though he said in Court yesterday that he believed the prisoner before him was the woman, he maintained that it was plainly a possibility, at this distance of time, that he might be mistaken. And further than that I cannot push him, Watson, lest in attempting to avoid a perversion of the course of justice, I pervert it myself by over-persuading a witness. I am sorry, old boy, you must be content to own me fallible. Am I much diminished in your eyes, my dear fellow? I shall regret it bitterly if I am.’ 

‘Never, no, never,’ he assured me. ‘How can you think it, Holmes? I am sure if anything more could have been done to assure the woman’s rightful punishment for this crime – you are quite certain, are you not, that she committed it? – you would have done it. And of course, once the child was at the river bank, in that lonely and desolate place where they found her body, there would be no-one to hear her cries.’ 

‘There was someone who heard a cry by the riverbank,’ I told him. ‘But the irony of that, in a case where ‘a woman’ has been seen at all places with this little girl, is that on this occasion, the person who heard what was surely her last cry, saw nothing. Nothing at all. It was growing dark, and he - a labourer living in a cottage about two hundred yards from the spot where the body was found - got up and went outside, to make out where the cry came from. But he saw nothing, and yesterday he continued to repeat on oath that he was not quite sure whether he had heard it on the night of the 20th, or on some later night. So you see, our last hope of securing an identification is gone. Only darkness and the river know what happened next. Why, Watson, my dear Watson, how you shiver! What is it? I shall tell you no more stories if they are to upset you so. Come, will you tell me what I have said that pains you so? I have not seemed callous, have I? I know I have appeared so in the past to you: tell me, pray, according to our compact, if I have offended against humanity.’ 

‘Not at all,’ He shifted restlessly in his chair, rose, and moved to the window. He would often stand thus with his back to me when he wished to speak of things that moved him deeply: it was as if he could not bear me to see him, as he thought, soft, or mawkish or sentimental. 

‘I have been wrong, Holmes, to say, even to imply, that you are a callous man. This last few months with the Lamson case have taught me that, and no, you have not offended. I know that despite how busy you have been, you have done your utmost in this little child’s case, and I agree, when there is so much circumstantial evidence, but no proof, it is heart-breaking. And I find it most strange, that we have solved a murder committed by means of a surreptitiously administered and thought to be untraceable poison, yet we cannot solve a murder committed by simple violence, and requiring no tests, no chemical analyses, no detailed examination, but simply proof positive of identity to confirm. I find it most strange that tomorrow Lamson will hang, yet, as you say, Esther Pay is likely to be acquitted, although as guilty as he. It makes me question the whole of our means of justice. Is it a travesty? Should he die then, and have no chance, through incarceration, and restitution, to make amends, when she is at liberty, if she chooses, to murder again? Can amends even be made for taking a life? And what of those such as I, who have killed in the service of the country? Am I a murderer too? Do I merit death myself, I, who will today visit, and medicine, and console a man condemned for one killing, when I have slain many? What hypocrisy is this? I tell you, Holmes, it makes my brain whirl. We have always, in this country, taken life for life. Is it truly the best way? The Old Testament enjoins it “ an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”: so surely then, I must suffer that penalty too. And what of the more merciful law that followed? What of that?’ 

I sprang up to join him at the window, for this was dangerous territory, quicksand, and he was sinking. I knew his nightmares still bedevilled him: he would not be the only soldier who was so haunted by his past that he laid violent hands upon himself in despair at what he had done. I had to help him see that he was no Lamson or Pay. 

‘If, as you say, Watson, it is wrong to take a life, even when under orders and fighting for your country, then you must consider what you do now,’ I told him, desperately trying to construct some argument that would lighten his burden. ‘You say that perhaps it is wrong to take life for life: the death penalty is harsh, and should, perhaps be re-considered, although for myself, I cannot see what else might deter the assassin. There are crimes committed in inadvertence, it is true, or in an excess of ungovernable passion, or even from desperation, when some poor long-abused cur turns and savages the hand that hurts them: for those perhaps some lesser penalty, some chance for making amends could be offered. But there are murders deeply thought out, Watson, plotted long, committed with the utmost cruelty by men – aye, and women - remorseless and vicious. For these, I will still maintain that life should be forfeited. But if you believe in a lesser penalty, in restitution, and recompense, in making amends or in forfeiture of goods as in the olden days, when wergild was paid, then let that be your own solace. You have killed in the service of your country, yes, and under orders. But you have paid a heavy price, my friend, and you pay it every day. You have paid in pain, and illness, in poverty, and loss of career. And you do make amends. You make amends every day, my dear fellow, when you heal and help those who are helpless. Let that be your restitution, and I pray, let it be your solace also.’ 

I did not dare to touch him again, but I stood close to him, and for a moment he leaned his shoulder against mine. I wanted to turn, and hold him to me, to embrace him, draw his head to my shoulder, caress it, and give it rest, but I knew I must not. He sighed, next to me, his arm touching mine. 

‘You always have an answer, Holmes. I am grateful for it, and that you think to console me, rather than accuse me of being unmanly, or a coward. I am not convinced, but I take it kindly of you. There are no easy answers to this dilemma.’ 

‘It is not unmanly to feel or to reflect on your actions,’ I told him. ‘It is not unmanly to be tender hearted, or to think that you have done wrong, or to question. It is gentle-hearted of you. The truest, bravest knight of all was Galahad, and he was gentle.’ 

He laughed then, ‘Why, Holmes, that is almost poetic. I would not have thought it of you, but I am grateful, though I am no Galahad. But it is more than that, at least today, and with this case. It is that I cannot tolerate unkindness, or cruelty to children. It moves me deeply, again, perhaps in a way that makes me – less of a man. Forgive me, I beg you, for my foolishness. I was – well, my childhood was not – well, anyway, I have not forgotten what it is to be small, and hurt, and - ’ He stopped then, turned away, and I let him go, not wanting to shame him by appearing to notice the roughness in his voice. ‘In any case, I must go. I have much to do. Where shall we dine, Holmes? And what time do you wish to go to the baths?’ 

‘I shall be taking luncheon with Lestrade: and in court all afternoon: we should go at six. I could ask Mrs Hudson to provide a cold collation here for afterwards, with perhaps some soup to reheat. Will that suit you?’ 

‘Providing we do not heat anything in your flasks,’ He smiled at me, although his eyes were sombre. ‘I have no desire to court poisoning. Until later then.’ 

He was gone shortly after, and I summoned Mrs Hudson to discuss our commissariat. ‘Doctor Watson is in pain, and so he is rather low today: I would like to have something to tempt his appetite. What can we offer him, Mrs Hudson? What can you and I do to cheer him a little, other than the Turkish baths?’ 

‘He broods too much on these murders of yours, Mr Holmes.’ She bustled around, moving papers, straightening the worn old afghan on the sofa. ‘Dear me, this is very shabby. It is time it was replaced. He craves the excitement of his army life, but it is not altogether wholesome for him, if you ask my opinion. And working in that hospital, seeing the cases he does, day after day, it does not surprise me that he feels it. I shall make him one of those venison pasties he particularly likes, and some other dainties, but what he needs is some pleasant excursion in prospect, or some cheerful event to attend. And if you are to be out today, Mr Holmes, I shall tidy and clean in here. It is enough to make anybody feel low, the disorder you have it in. Begone with you, Sir, and leave it to Janey and me to make it more comfortable.’ 

‘I consider myself duly rebuked,’ I replied, unable to repress a smile. Her fondness for us touched me more than I liked to admit. ‘I will instantly relieve you of my unwelcome presence, and no doubt return to find you have worked miracles both culinary and domestic to improve our dear doctor’s spirits.’ 

‘Get along with you, then,’ she said, sweeping her hand along the mantelpiece, and tutting at the layer of ash, ‘Really, the pair of you are worse than my own two boys that were, and my husband into the bargain.’ 

But she was laughing as she spoke, and I did not feel very much scolded. 

***** 

Watson’s eyes were still shadowed when I met him at the Northumberland Avenue baths later. In answer to my questions, as we left our boots in the boot room, he told me that Lamson was not in a good way. ‘He wavers between penitence and railing against his fate: I do not know how he will go on tomorrow morning, when it comes to the last hour. His spirit is failing him, I am afraid, as that hour draws near. 

‘But you will not go,’ I asked him, as we stripped to our drawers in the changing room. ‘Pray, Watson, do say that you will not go. I do not like to think of you there.’ 

‘I will not,’ he assured me, arranging his shirt back over his maimed shoulder. He was self-conscious about it, clearly. ‘It is to be private. And I would not be welcome to his family anyway, being one of those involved in bringing him to justice. No, I shall not be there, you need not worry.’ 

The attendants came then, with a _peshtemal _for each of us and towels, and modestly draped we proceeded through the drying room. A glance upwards showed me that the secluded corner I favoured on the upper gallery was free, and a word and a promise in my attendant’s ear ensured that it would remain so until we came to it. We sat for a while in the coolest of the warm rooms, then moved to the hottest of the three. Watson relaxed even as I watched him, the heat easing his pain. At one point he unwrapped his _peshtemal _, placed it under him, and lay prone. His face was on his folded arms, turned away from me, and shameless, I allowed my eyes to linger on the musculature of his back, charting the difference between uninjured and wounded shoulder. From there it was a short distance to the long track of his naked spine, each vertebra a little too prominent, and the sweet, smooth curves of flank and buttock. The dip where his gluteus maximums and gluteus medius attached to the tensor fasciae was in itself a thing of beauty.____

‘Holmes,’ he reproved me, sleepily, and I jumped and bit my tongue. ‘I can feel you staring at my scar. I beg you will desist; it is ugly, and I am not proud of it.’ 

It was not his scar I was staring at, but the crease where buttock met thigh, lightly downed with hair, slicked with sweat. Dear heaven, I could smell him, salt and animal musk. ‘I’m sorry.’ I was not sorry. ‘They butchered you, Watson: what shocking doctors you had. I swear there is a part of your infraspinatus actually missing. And your scapula has healed incorrectly: it is misplaced.’ 

He groaned, and sat up, flicking the _peshtemal _to cover himself, although not before I had caught a glimpse of his member, all flushed with the heat. ‘Accurate but unsystematic was wrong. I dare say you could name systematically every muscle in the body, Holmes. And every bone too. Yes, there is. And yes, the scapula has healed crookedly. I was the best surgeon out there, although I say it myself, but I could not put myself back together of course. Is it hot enough for you in here? Have you sweated enough? I am eager to get to the massage, and be free of the pain. I shall ask them to deal with this leg, as well, and perhaps then I shall move more easily for a few days. This was a capital idea, old fellow, and now we can afford it, you are right to suggest we make it a regular occurrence. Are you ready?’__

We moved to the shampooing room, and lay on the _gobektasi _for the _keselenmek _; the massage treatment. I turned to face him. His cheek was pillowed on one arm, his eyes closed, as the _tellak _lathered him with the _kese _and black soap. From where he was lying, I could see the scarring on his back, and my fingers itched to touch it, to learn its contours.________

‘It is not ugly,’ I told him. ‘It is a mark of your courage, so own it as such. Be proud: it is a badge of valour and of your duty well done.’ 

A smile curved his lips, ‘ “Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars, and say ‘these wounds I had on Crispin’s day’ ” Oh Holmes, you are the most consummate romantic. There was nothing valiant about my service, it was a thing of hard duty and slogging endurance. And shamefully short, into the bargain. Ahhhh . . .’ He moaned, long and guttural as the _tellak _scrubbed the back of his wounded thigh, _‘Dikkatli ol! Bu acıttı!’ _and when the man questioned him in a long, involved roulade of liquid Turkish, laughed and shook his head. _‘Biraz konuşuyorum. Ben bir ordu doktoruyum. Yaralanan askerlere önem veriyorum _. No, I don’t understand all of that, _Hayır, hayır _– no, no more.’ And to me, ‘I must have learned those phrases in a dozen languages when I was at Netley. “I am a doctor, I care for hurt soldiers.” There were places it stood me in good stead on the way to Kandahar, but it did me no good at Maiwand, alas. My enemy shot from a vantage point without caring that I was engaged in a work of mercy. The poor chap I was doctoring bled to death under me, and I bled near to death on him, and that was the end of both our careers. An ignominious end, do you not think so? Ye _Gods _, this is good!’ He moaned again, a long, unashamed sound of relief, sensual, innocent.__________

I was not innocent. My _tellak _motioned to me to turn onto my back, and I shook my head. Not only was I not innocent, I was not unaroused. The mere sight of him, the sounds he was making - involuntary, sotto-voce mewls as muscles relaxed under the scrubbing, an almost purr as his feet were lathered – I wanted it to be me taking him apart, my fingers teasing pleasure from every nerve, caressing him until he moaned. But I could not. I could not even think it without shame. I recited Mendeleev’s new periodic table of the elements, willed myself into quiescence. My body was accustomed to obeying me: fiercely, I compelled it to yield before I lay on my back. The diminution of my morphine dose had certainly not helped with my shameful desires, and whereas on the stronger doses of morphine I could dream, but achieve nothing, on these lesser amounts my body became uncomfortably clamorous, even, at times, insistent.__

‘Holmes, are you uncomfortable? You look as if you are in pain?’ 

‘My left knee.’ I lied, ‘I think I must have strained a muscle.’ 

The deep, punishing, healing massage succeeded the shampooing, and then, rinsed, cooled and swathed in sheets, we repaired to our secluded couches on the gallery of the drying room. A nod to my attendant, and he drew the curtain, cutting our alcove off from view, but allowing the air free passage. Watson stretched on his couch, sighing, his eyelids already closing as he abandoned himself to ease. 

‘If only there were some magical conjuration to transport us instantly home,’ he murmured. ‘Holmes, there is no pain. I feel as if I could sleep for a week.’ 

‘Sleep,’ I told him, ‘If you wish to. There is nothing we must do, and you need the rest, for you have slept ill these past few nights.’ 

‘I cannot.’ He dragged his eyes open. ‘Not in a public place.’ 

’We are quite private here, and I will stand watch for you. Sleep, my dear fellow, it will do you good.’ I laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Sleep, there is nothing to harm you, and I am here. I will stay by you. Close your eyes, Watson.’ 

He slept for two hours. Two most precious hours, when he was solely mine, his safety, his peace given into my hand, his body mine to guard and cherish. I marked his every dream as it crossed his face, the flicker of his eyes beneath closed eyelids, his involuntary movements and murmurs. When he sank deep, no longer dreaming, I dared to smooth his hair from his forehead with a brief, light touch, then to rest my hand - not on his person, for I would not go so far - but on the hem of his sheet as it lay across the arm of the couch. 

Our attendant looked in at one point. He asked in the lowest of tones if I required tea, and I indicated yes, in an hour. He smiled, and went away, giving me a sympathetic glance as he did so – a glance which told me that for once, I, to whom all needs and longings were transparent, was, in my own need, my own heart’s longing, transparent to this simple servitor. As to refreshment, I needed nothing: my thirst was assuaged by every sip of him I took. I bent close: his breath fanned my cheek. A fine dew pearled at his brow: I longed to press reverent lips to it. He shifted, and the displaced linen released air warmed by his body: I passed my hand over the cloth as if to caress. I was in a fever, a delirium, yet so ruthlessly had I suppressed my desire, so much did I hate the thought of desecrating, by one unchaste thought, one hint of pollution, the trust he had placed in me as he lay there abandoned to sleep in my care, that my flesh lay innocent now, and unstirred. It was my heart that swelled, my mind that whirled and dazzled, my thoughts which turned in my brain with exquisite intensity. I was transported: no drug had ever matched this ecstasy . . . 

‘You look a little pale,’ he said to me, later, as we partook of Mrs Hudson’s excellent venison pasties, devilled kidneys kept hot in a chafing dish, and sherried mushroom soup. ‘Take another glass of claret, Holmes, and for goodness’ sake eat a little more. You wear yourself out with brainwork, and then do not nourish the body your brain feeds on. Here.’ He ladled more soup into my plate. ‘At least eat this, if you will not have one of these delicious pasties.’ 

‘You took the one I wanted,’ I grumbled, just to tease him, ‘The littlest one, that was least well done. You know I cannot stomach over-cooked pastry, or too much of it.’ 

He sighed, rolled his eyes, and reached for my knife. ‘Here, give me that.’ He cut off the corner he had just bitten into, and handed me the rest. ‘You wanted it: now eat it.’ 

I could do naught save comply. But he smiled very kindly at me as I did so. 

***** 

Lamson was executed; Esther Pay acquitted. In early May came the Phoenix Park murders, and Watson and I (at my brother’s request, although I did not mention this to Watson) travelled quietly to Ireland, to assist with the regrettably rather simple investigation there. Afterwards, most uncharacteristically, Watson became roaring drunk in a low tavern in Dublin, so I hauled him back to our hotel with his arm over my shoulder, and held his head all night while he wept and railed against life’s cruelty. In the morning he was shamefaced and sad, and so the following night I provoked a fight in a tavern even lower, and allowed my opponent to land a punch on me before knocking him out cold. Watson scolded me fiercely all the way back to the hotel before salving my bruised cheekbone and split lip, but at least his self respect was restored. 

We took ourselves off to Galway on a repairing lease after that, out of the way of city temptations. Over a fortnight, we rode, and fished – unsuccessfully, alas - and we walked for miles while he instructed me with learned enthusiasm on the peculiar flora of the Burren. In the evenings, we returned to our humble cottage and ate a peasant’s meal of roasted potatoes, cabbage, bacon, butter and milk, washed down with the excellent whiskey of the country. Other than Watson’s company, there were no delights to this rural location which did not soon pall on me: there were no more murders, no scheming Fenians to baffle, and had it not been for the pleasure of watching him, I would have been bored out of my wits. But Mrs Hudson had recommended a pleasant excursion, or some cheerful event, and I was doing my best to comply with her instructions. It certainly seemed to improve his mood: the exercise and fresh air suited him, and although it rained rather copiously on our bucolic pleasures, there were enough sunny days for him to return to London with a healthier glow than he had had since I had known him. 

June and July saw Watson back at Barts, working hard, and with renewed energy for his London waifs and strays, while I idled away my time with a series of run-of-the-mill cases for Lestrade and Gregson, whose rivalry, it had to be said, had reached the point where, like a pair of professional beauties, they came nigh to stabbing or poisoning each other. It amused me to play them off against each other, although I had to be careful in so doing, since I needed the cases they provided. My own personal clientele was not yet paying me enough for me to dispense with the Yard’s patronage. We were doing well, Watson and I, but not quite well enough, and although I could see, as August brazened the dusty air and curled the horse chestnut leaves with prematurely autumnal tints, that he yearned for the glades of the New Forest, or the shingle of some breezy beach, I was obliged to veto any further holidays lest we deplete our bank accounts too gravely. The singular affair of the two ears packed in a cardboard box came just in time to save us both from terminal ennui, and although it was a sad business, as such love-caused murders often are, it replenished our funds, and sent us into the autumn in fair financial weather. 

Afterwards, though, it was I who flagged. My trouble was simple: the diminution, the almost complete deprivation of my morphia dose. It had reached a point where I could sleep without it, but at the price of vivid, detailed erotic dreams, leading inevitably to nocturnal pollution. I found also that, as if punishing me for the long years I had denied it, my too-responsive member, no longer restrained by morphia, would tempt me too frequently to desire manual stimulation and release. I did not give in to it, for I knew that medical professionals inveighed against the practice of onanism as extremely deleterious to health. I had been well schooled in the appalling effects of self-abuse, and as I valued my mind more than anything else, I refused to indulge. I had no wish to become one of those mentally enfeebled, pallid specimens whose sad addiction is plain to all. 

In September I had therefore purchased, and constrained myself to wear, appropriate devices to tame my beast, both by day and by night. But they chafed and stung, and hurt me all the time, a veritable hair shirt of penitence; the night one being by far the worst. The pain made me, I confess, irritable and morose, and I replied snappishly to Watson’s kind enquiries, so that for a while he drew back, offended, and no longer bothered to ask me. Then I felt sorry for myself, and, I regret to say, sulked and growled even more, so that a perceptible coolness grew between us even as the year cooled. I could see that he was not happy, and steeled myself for the day I felt would inevitably come, when he no longer wished to share a room with such an unpleasant fellow, and would announce his intention to seek other quarters. 

I was in this very low state, sore, and desperate and miserable, when he came to me one mid-November morning an hour or so after breakfast with a very serious mien, and that relentlessly gentle air he had when he was, as a doctor, most concerned for his patient. One look was enough to tell me that he meant to have it out with me, and internally I trembled, for I fully believed he would leave me, and I could not trust myself not to fall at his feet and plead my love for him, to my certain undoing. 

‘What is it you want, Watson?’ I growled at him, in a vain attempt to drive him from me. ‘I am busy this morning: I don’t have time for idle talk. Do, for heaven’s sake, go away and leave me alone. 

‘Nor do I,’ he replied, equably enough. ‘But it is not idle talk I want with you, Holmes. I wish for a serious discussion with you, man to man, and try as you might, and I know you will, to chase me away or deflect me, I shall not yield to you. And to that end, I have telegraphed both Lestrade and Gregson to say that you are not well, and I have sent Mrs Hudson and Janey out to buy Janey a new dress length, and Mrs Hudson a new tea-kettle. And glad they were to get some respite, my friend, for you have been a very bear to all of us these last two months, and I am determined to understand your trouble and remedy it, so we can go back to living at our ease again. Now, will you tell me freely what ails you, my dear man? I am still your friend, you know, for all that you have tried to drive me away with surly answers and evil looks. Come, Holmes, will you confide in me of your own accord? I think of you as a very dear brother, and good brothers care for each other.’ 

‘How dare you be so officious as to press me?’ I snapped at him, my mind in turmoil. I had to make him go; I could not let him know my shameful secret. ‘What right have you to go behind my back and do these things? Will you bring in other doctors next, to have me declared not in my right mind? To confine me?’ 

‘I shall tell no-one of our discussions today, Holmes,’ he replied, still with that air of imperturbable gravity. ‘They are private to you and to me, and so they will always remain. And no, of course I will not have you declared insane: that is a ridiculous suggestion, so do not dare to insult me so. You know that I take my duty as a physician very seriously: indeed it is that duty that compels me,’ and here he swallowed, and his eyes gleamed with a suspicious moisture, ‘that compels me to speak to you today even if afterwards you do reject my service, or my friendship. I would not be doing my duty if I did not speak. So let me ask you again, my dear friend, will you tell me of your own accord, what it is that ails you?’ 

‘Why do you suppose there is anything that ails me?’ I replied, deliberately making my voice as hard, as uncompromising as I could. ‘Perhaps it is you who are at fault: do you think it is always easy for me to live with a man of such mediocre intelligence and poor standing in the world? Perhaps it is that I am tired of living with you, of bearing with, of tolerating your ordinary and pedestrian nature. I am an intelligent man: perhaps I grow weary of living with a dullard.’ 

I had hurt him. I could see that I had hurt him, and my own heart bled for him, even as I sharpened further words with which to pierce his. 

‘It has not been easy this last year and a half,’ I mused, affecting an air of cruel unconcern, ‘living with a cripple, a man who can follow me neither physically nor intellectually. So yes, it must be you. You are what ails me, Watson, and I thank you for making it clear for me. It only remains now for you to leave me, as I am sure you must wish to do. As you must see is the best for both of us.’ And I rose, pushed my chair back and flung away from him, as though I could no longer bear his presence. 

‘Stop, Holmes!’ It was his captain’s voice, and I did, indeed, stop in my tracks. ‘Enough of this.’ He moved deliberately round to face me again. ‘Insult me all you choose: you cannot prevent me from doing my duty, more, from acting on that affection for you I do most certainly feel, and will not cease to feel, though you say you feel none for me. Let there be no more railing at me. I tell you again, I know that you are unwell, and in pain.’ 

His voice softened. ‘Will you, my dear Holmes, tell me what ails you? Will you trust me, both as a doctor and a friend, to counsel and heal and console you? Holmes,’ and now he was pleading, ‘My friend, I am so very sorry to force your confidence – so deeply, deeply sorry to do it, but pray, my dear, do not carry this charade any further. Pray do tell me.’ 

I could barely stand by this point. The night had been bad, and I had woken to blood on the sheets, and renewed pain, which made it impossible to walk or sit with comfort. The night device – which I had torn from me in a frenzy of disgust and shame - once removed, and the daytime one forced on my shivering flesh, I was near mad with it. And after I had ripped up at him like a Billingsgate fishwife, I was trembling so much, both with grief for my hard words to him – oh, they might have hurt him, but to throw them at him had hurt me intolerably, bitten deep into my very soul – and with shame for myself. He could not, I knew, have divined my true torment, but whatever he thought my difficulty was, I could never tell him the truth. He saw my shaking, took my arm – so gentle, his touch, so gentle – and led me to a chair, into which I dropped, cowering, my hands covering my face. I could do no more, torn as I was with pain and sorrow. 

‘I cannot,’ I gasped, hating the sound of my own broken voice. ‘I cannot, Watson, I beg you, don’t ask me. Leave me: I can tell you nothing. 

He knelt in front of me, his hands on the arms of my chair as if to embrace me, looking up into my face with those dark-blue eyes. 

‘Cannot you so, my dear? Then I must tell you myself, it seems. You see, I have a very dear friend with whom I live, and who is a brother to me in all but name, and we go on more than tolerably together, having a good deal of fun, to tell the truth, such as I have not had since I was a boy, and perhaps not even as a boy – give me your wrist, Holmes: I wish to check your pulse. There, that is calming a little now.’ 

He touched my hand, caressing it with his thumb. ‘And my friend is, rather regrettably, addicted to morphia, and has bravely – so very bravely, Holmes - battled his addiction until he has almost overcome it. And by and large, my dear fellow, because his doctor has diminished his dose by little and little, he has mostly avoided those very distressing effects of withdrawal of which you know, and of which I know, and have warned him. But there is one effect of ceasing to take morphia about which – your wrist again, Holmes – thanks, my dear fellow, that is even better now – his doctor, who is as you say, the dullest of dullards that ever walked this earth, did not think to warn him.’ 

He paused, and passed his hand over his eyes. ‘Oh, this is difficult to say to you. I have so wished not to trespass on your intimate matters, to force your confidence, but I must, I must say something. And that is, that while under the influence of morphia a man may, as it were, desire all but achieve nothing, he is, when the system is unsullied by the drug, capable of both desire and the act . . . and when that very stupid doctor,’ and as I dared to look at him, I saw that his eyes were bright with tears, ‘that very stupid doctor, who has wondered for some months now why his friend, who should by this time be going on so much better without the drug, is not better, is in fact worse: worse tempered and more irritable, when he finds an object of torture such as this lying where he sees it by pure chance,’ and he dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out my night-time device, showing it to me on his palm, ‘it is not difficult for that doctor to deduce, dullard though he be, what has happened to his friend, or why his friend is in so much pain.’ 

His eyes met mine. I cursed my stupidity for not looking where I had flung the device. It must have rolled out of my door, to some shadowed corner where he had found it. 

‘Watson,’ I whispered, for he was looking at me with so much sorrow, and there was no point in me hiding now, none at all, when all was discovered, and my ignominious weakness exposed, ‘Watson, I must. I must wear them. Watson, you know how I value my mind. I do, I am sorry. I have tried to be above it all, but I do feel. I am – I am a human male: I cannot choose but feel, or react. But I cannot act on it. You are a doctor, you know what giving in to – to the impulse. You know what it leads to: the degradation, the loss of vital force, of intellect. I cannot lose my intellect, Watson. Without it I am nothing. You are a doctor: you know.’ 

‘Yes, I am a doctor,’ he said ‘And what I know, I know. Do you trust me, Holmes?’ 

‘Always,’ But I could not trust my voice. ‘You know I do.’ 

‘Then at once into your bedroom with you, remove the device you wear now – you are wearing one, are you not? – and go to your dressing table. I have left warm water there. I wish you to wash yourself with great care, taking note of any open lesions, and use the linen I have left you to pat yourself dry. Gently, Holmes. On any open sore, you will put the unction I have given you, and you will dust yourself with the basilicum powder. Put on loose cotton drawers, and your shirt and dressing gown - or a nightshirt and dressing gown if you prefer - and return to me. Bring me the device, and do not on any account wipe it. I will not at this moment force you to the indignity of a personal examination, but I must see if you have bled, and deduce where. You have been immeasurably foolish to subject yourself to this torment, and all to no avail, as I shall presently explain to you, but I have been worse than foolish. I have been criminally negligent, not to address this issue with you, but you see, I feared to embarrass you– it is not for nothing, doctors are discouraged from treating their nearest and dearest – and so I said nothing, where with a stranger I might have been more frank, knowing he could choose not to face me again. And for that, I shall not soon forgive myself. Now, my friend, can you do as I have asked?’ 

I nodded, for I could not speak. 

‘Are you sure? Can I help you stand, Holmes? There, that is it. Go gently, and make all right, my dear fellow, and call me if you have need. There is nothing to be afraid of, you will not lose your mind. You have been sadly misinformed, as have so many other young men, but I shall explain to you that there is nothing to fear.’ 

All the time he spoke, he was supporting me, his arm around my shoulders, as I limped, not trying to hide now, into my room. Once the door was shut behind me, I made haste to strip myself, and unlock the metal sheath that confined me, releasing flesh rubbed raw and bruised. The device I wore during the day had no spikes, as did my night-time torment, but it was unyielding. I could confess now to myself that the constant edge of pain had materially impaired my temper and my ability to function, but I had seen no option but to persist until I had brought myself into subjugation. What Watson was talking of – that I had been misinformed – I had no idea: all my teaching had been that the act of self abuse led to mental impairment and an early grave. But he had asked me if I trusted him, and I did, so I obeyed. 

Slowly, I cleansed and anointed myself, dressing in my nightshirt, drawers and gown. I felt ridiculously tired, drained as if I had been ill for weeks. If Mrs Hudson and the girl were indeed out, if there were to be no interruptions, I might perhaps sleep. Rest had been – elusive - of late, while I battled my demons. 

Watson tapped at the door. ‘Holmes, my dear fellow, are you decent? May I enter? I know it is early in the day, but I have brought you a little brandy, just to steady your nerves. Will you have it here, or come and sit on the sofa?’ 

‘On the sofa,’ I told him. ‘I have done as you bade me, Watson, but I am so stupidly fatigued. I feel as if I could sleep for a day. For a week.’ 

‘It is no wonder.’ He took my hand, as if I had been a child, led me to the sofa, and made me lie down on it, covering me with a blanket once I was reclining. ‘Here, sip your brandy. Now, Holmes, my dear fellow, I shall sit here, on the floor, with my back to you, so you can listen to me, but I shall not embarrass you by looking at you, and we shall just have this out very plainly and simply. Whatever you appear to have been told about that act commonly designated as self-abuse is incorrect. It is a natural thing, as men mature, for the male member to become aroused at times, and natural for it to wish to spend itself in release. In the marital relationship, of course, there is mutual agreement between husband and wife, and there is, or there should be, pleasure for both from the desire and the action, which need not, if the couple does not wish it, lead to procreation. Malthus, you know, was quite clear that indeed it should not always lead to procreation, lest the earth be overrun with humanity. We should read him together,’ he added as an aside, ‘I believe you would be interested.’ 

‘Of – of course. A-Anything you wish me to, I will of course, but, but - ’ 

‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘There are many men who are not married, and who cannot seek release with a partner, and who will not use the services of such women as sell release. And for such men, when there is desire that is not relieved by that nocturnal emission of seed which all of us, even you, Holmes, naturally experience, then in that case, to deal with the matter oneself by – by simple manipulation is infinitely the best thing. First and foremost, it is clean, incurring no risk of disease. Then it is honest and pure, for it involves no other person bought and sold, and it is, very importantly, safe, for it gets no woman pregnant, to her ruin. It is, in truth, the best and most practical way of taking care of the situation when as it does in the natural way of things, it occurs – I will not say arises, lest you suspect me of a pun.’ 

‘But I was taught . . .’ I protested. He was turning everything I had been taught on its head: I could not reconcile what he was saying with my understanding. 

He snorted – positively snorted - with disgust. ‘Taught! Of course you were taught! And by whom were you taught, Holmes? By ignorant nannies, parroting what they did not understand, ‘it is a sin for little boys to touch themselves’? By pedantic schoolmasters, sour with joyless Christianity? Such men are eager to channel the energy of youth into their own purposes, Holmes, the purposes of Empire, and glory, which they do for the most part by damming its flow in the direction of satisfying physical needs, that they may divert it more forcefully elsewhere, into hate against our enemies. By doctors, peddling the same outworn creed, telling bogeyman tales to frighten children into obedience?‘ 

I would have spoken, but, ‘and damned, dangerous, inaccurate tales into the bargain,’ he went on, and I saw him raise his hand to tug at his moustache, a habit of his when most moved, ‘for this so-called sin of Onan that they so deprecate was without a doubt _coitus interruptus _since his desire was not to impregnate his brother’s wife: why, if it was simply self-abuse he wished to avoid, was he having to do with his brother’s wife at all, I ask you? It was the act incomplete, and thus in the eyes of the priest and Levite, tarnished, that was deprecated, not the mere spilling of seed, which incurred in their laws only a temporary loss of cleanliness.’__

‘I do not know,’ I replied, and I truly did not: I had accepted this, as I had accepted my own inversion, as a burden I was condemned to carry. ‘I do not know, not now, not when you say it like that. But, but aside from Onan, what of the, what of the physical effects? Is it not true then, Watson, that the, the, expenditure of, of s-seminal f-fluid, is deleterious to health? What of the effects of r-repeated emission on sanity, on the capacity for physical and m-mental exertion?’ 

He heaved a huge sigh, and turned to face me, taking the hand I had stretched out to him between both of his. ‘Holmes, old Bach, whose complex and difficult music you play for me so very beautifully, sired twenty children. At very least he must have approached his wives twenty times, then, if not many more, given that it is not always the first act of coitus that leads inevitably to fecundation. Would you say that he lacked mental capacity? That he lacked genius? Da Vinci, that great artist and inventor, was a passionate lover of boys: did his inspiration flag? And there are many more examples I could offer you. As for physical strength? My friend, if the act of self-pleasure, for I will not call it abuse, led to an enfeebled physical state then England would be in peril indeed. For I do not know a soldier who does not, when the need is upon him, take care of himself. And you do not see platoons of etiolated degenerates marching into battle to defend our Empire, do you? Our soldiers are, once taken into the army, and well fed, as hale and hearty a set of lads as you will find and it is not, NOT, my dear fellow, because they torture themselves with serrated metal and cruel spikes and deny themselves what innocent – yes, innocent, for they harm no-one, Holmes, so you need not look so disbelieving at me with those anguished eyes, my dear friend – innocent pleasures they can find.’ 

He released my hand, and turned away, shaking his head. 

‘So there is nothing wrong w-with, with the act of self pleasure?’ I asked. ‘You do not believe so, at any rate, Watson? And, and are there other doctors who agree with you? Others who do not believe what I have always been told?’ 

‘There are. We are a small voice of reason, fighting, it has to be said, not just male but female physicians who take a more repressive stance. But I firmly believe we will increase in number, those of us who believe in a sensible attitude to these problems, and to reproductive issues, and the treatment of women. If you like, I shall introduce you to some of my colleagues who feel similarly to me. Dr Moore Agar, perhaps, might serve your turn, or you might find Dr Burns-Gibson sympathetic.’ 

He rose to his feet and walked to the window. ‘Holmes, my dear man, would you like me to stay with you now, or shall I leave you alone for a while? I know for someone as innocent, as pure minded as you, discovering this, this aspect of yourself must have been terribly difficult, especially believing as you did. I am not surprised you have been bad tempered, and all out of sorts. What can I do best now to assist you?’ 

‘I don’t know. I am so – I don’t know what to do,’ I admitted. I felt desperately weary, but there was yet one thing I had to say to him. ‘Watson – I – I spoke most cruelly to you, most harshly in my anger. Will you forgive me, and still be my friend? I – I do truly value you, and our friendship. I did not mean those unkind words I spoke to you, and they were none of them true, not one. Can you forgive me?’ 

‘Of course, let us say no more about it. It was entirely understandable, and to be honest, I could see that you did not mean it, but were giving way to the prompting of some inner demon driving you, as you have been doing these last months.’ He returned to my side and stood looking down at me. ‘Holmes, for the rest of the day, I shall treat you as my patient. You are clean, now, and comfortable. Return to your bed, stay there and rest, and when Mrs Hudson returns, I will tell her you have a slight fever, and must cosset yourself today on my orders. We will eat when you wake, and I shall read my latest story to you, that you may have the fun of criticising it. And I shall make an arrangement for you to see Moore Agar, I think. You should, nay, you must, be properly examined lest you have done yourself permanent damage, and it will be less embarrassing for both of us if it is done by a physician who is not your friend, to whom you may speak freely, without having to encounter him over the breakfast table in the remembrance of those too personal thoughts you have shared. Meanwhile you will give me your word that you will not use your devices, and that you will endeavour to think more kindly of your body’s wants and needs. It is not just the vehicle which carries that great brain of yours around: it is wedded inextricably to brain and heart both, and you cannot divorce them without doing damage.’ 

I acquiesced. He assisted me to stand, and guided me to my room, his arm around me. I told him on the way that I knew he was right, that while I had been battling my rebel flesh, I had had not owned my former acuity of mind, nor yet my tempered reason, and he buffeted me gently on the shoulder, telling me it was a good thing that he had enough common sense for the pair of us. I believe he was still tucking me in like a child, or like the younger brother he called me, when I fell asleep. 

***** 

Watson always had a kindly, genial way of making things easy. After our intimate discussion – dear Heaven, how painfully, excruciatingly intimate it had been, and how I had blushed and sweated and stammered my way through it – I had thought to feel more sense of _gêne _than I did, but there was none. He summoned Dr Moore Agar, who on examining me pronounced that I had done no permanent nerve damage, but had foolishly caused several deep sores that would take a while to heal, also that I was thoroughly overstrained, undernourished and exhausted.__

On Agar’s recommendation, and with Watson’s approval, I kept my bed for a week, cared for like some Eastern pasha, swathed in an afghan against the chill that crept in through the windows, and taking the short days and long evenings at my ease. Mrs Hudson cosseted me with nourishing soup, and Watson read to me and played chess. My mind was light and free, and my torments, for a while, in abeyance: I felt no desire, for I was too weary and, somehow, too relieved. It suited me to stay curled up against my pillows, to watch the firelight on Watson’s hair as he read me some fantastic tale or other, and to laugh with him over cartoons in Punch, or the Spectator’s acerbic commentary. It was a halcyon time, an oasis in the drear desert that was my hopeless longing for a man whom I thought would never long for me. But he loved me though, loved me with the true, enduring love of comrade and brother, and though I knew, somehow, that he could not ever make me his all, I was yet content to make him mine. 

I felt well again after that week of ease, and was eager to be up and doing. The Married Woman’s Property Act had received its royal assent in the August, and would be enforced from the January soon to come. Lestrade, who had a notorious soft spot for women in difficulty, especially if they had children, put many cases related to its provisions in prospect for me, to be actioned when the time came. I knew I would be busy, and in work where Watson could join me in my crusade. 

So we wore out the year preparing for that work, and then it was Christmas again, the second of our fraternity. I bought Watson a very handsome pocket pistol from Paris: a pretty, deadly thing, with gold-washed fancy-work, and an ebony butt. He gave me the newly published sheet music for Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy Suite, and a dressing gown. My mouse-coloured cashmere was shabby and torn, splotched with dye and stained with chemicals. He offered me its exact like, telling me that I should keep it to change into when clients arrived, and save the old one for experiments, and I smiled to think that my correct and proper doctor had been so far lured from _les convenances _as to take my seeing our clients in informal attire in his stride.__

We celebrated in style with the children – all of them for I had expanded my little force of Irregulars, as the money flowed in more regularly; and we sent Mrs Hudson, Janey, and her siblings to the circus for a treat. We did not omit our afternoon Christmas walk with Watson’s pocketful of shillings, either, although this time we took poor Lestrade with us. His wife, the sorry shrew, had sent him packing on the very afternoon of the feast, for having had one sherry too many, and protesting his servitude. He came to us as he had nowhere else to go, unfortunate man that he was, and spent the night on our sofa, until she came round on Boxing Day morning, making a doleful noise, accusing him of rank desertion, and eventually dragging him off by his coat sleeve as she rained execrations on both Watson, and Mrs Hudson. To me she did not speak: I was clearly beneath contempt. 

The New Year entered quietly, without fanfare. I had not forgotten what Watson had told me about the needs of a man; moreover, at his urging, I had spoken to other doctors. So when there was that need, and I could not ignore or suppress it by exercise of will, I learned gradually to deal with it in the most expedient fashion. It was a purely mechanical exercise on the rare occasion I utilised it for relief, and sometimes a damned tedious one at that, for I never could think of what to think about to achieve my result speedily. I could not demean Watson, of course, by making him the object of my fantasy. My reveries of him remained in my mind, surfacing now and again in dreams not of lust or stark need but of a diffuse and exquisite sensuality, a luxuriance of repeated caresses, love words whispered in the dark, the prayerful reverence of worship, for I loved him with a love that was close to idolatry. There was a difference between love and lust to my mind, and although I had become convinced that there was no sin in servicing my body, to profane my love for him with feelings and thoughts unsought, unwanted, even unguessed at – that, I could not do. That, to me, would have been sin indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holmes went under the alias of Sigerson during his time in Tibet. He was also believed to have been in India, where he took part in 'The Great Game', the intricate, dangerous duel of spying that took place along the Afghan border, where Russia was testing the borders of British India. Mycroft, of course, was deeply involved in this.
> 
> Moran, in canon, is referred to as 'the old shikarri' - a hunter of wild game. His time in the Indian Army had ended in disgrace and ignominy, and he had turned traitor, both by spying for the Russians, with whom Moriarty was deeply involved, and by aiding the great criminal himself. He was almost a more deadly enemy that the professor himself, in truth: since he had become aware that Mycroft Holmes' brother was countering his moves in India and Tibet, as well as having removed his most generous patron. 
> 
> Mycroft was very discreet in referring to 'their dear mutual friend, Melas.' Melas must, of course, have been particularly intimate with Mycroft for the great man to have been so concerned about him (as the reader will no doubt see when Holmes recounts the story of the Greek Interpreter. 
> 
> Diagrams of Neville's Turkish Baths in Northumberland Avenue do indeed show, as Watson mentions, the first floor gallery where couches were placed in friendly pairs. I believe I have actually managed to ascertain which secluded corner the two mem favoured, although, of course, diagrams do not show the discreet curtaining.
> 
> Accounts of the Yalding Murder, which slightly overlapped the Lamson Case, can be found in the Spectator for the relevant date. The details are accurate - and it is true that, despite the circumstantial evidence against her, Esther Pay, who was undoubtedly a murderess, was acquitted for lack of positive identification.
> 
> The Phoenix Park murders of 6th May 1882 shocked the nation. Full details can be found here: http://www.historyireland.com/featured-archive-post/lord-frederick-cavendish-phoenix-park-murders-1882/ This was not, alas, to be Holmes' and Watson's only encounter with the Fenians, amd their cousins, the Clan Na Gael.
> 
> Holmes' attitudes to 'the solitary vice' were more common in the day, as were his attempts to curb it. Watson's were rather more progressive, mostly because of his time in the army. It was not uncommon for these matters to be discussed among males: Wagner, for example, was most concerned about Nietzsche's addiction to masturbation. But then, Wagner also wore pink silk amd lace underwear.
> 
> My apologies for the long delay. The travesty that was Season 4 occupied me for much of January. I have already started Part 6, and things are becoming much more interesting.


	6. Chapter 6

**Since First I Saw Your Face: Part 6 ******

**Umballa, residence of Colonel Creighton of the Ethnographical Survey. ******

**_Brother Mycroft,_ **

**_I am encoding this letter with our own private code, that it may be the more secure, and I have prevailed upon our friend in Umballa to entrust it to the diplomatic bag from Lucknow: I trust, therefore that it will not be too long before it reaches you. A reply directed to the Persian rendezvous we agreed on, will I believe, be our next best chance of communicating . . ._ **

**Holmes stops, gazing out of the window, and taps the pen on the table. As if summoned, Ram Das enters with a cup of tea, and a saucer of sticky sweetmeats, which Holmes immediately waves away.**

**‘Mr Creighton asks if you will be at leisure to attend him in the drawing room in twenty minutes, Sir, to discuss your onward journey,’ Ram Das says, and Holmes notices that he does not now offer the honorific ‘Sahib’ habitual to Indians under the British government, but the English usage. He sips his tea and observes: here is one who is more than a servant; an educated, trusted confidant, with a proudly discreet bearing. ‘Kshatriya caste, and a Rajasthani. Creighton tells me you were orphaned young, and taken into the service of the Ethnographic Survey. But then sent to Bilayut and - Harrow-educated, I think,’ he muses, and Ram Das laughs outright.**

**‘Indeed,’ he says, ‘I was fortunate that Mr Creighton offered me education and training. Sir, you are everything he has said of you.’**

**‘You are as a son to him,’ but the young man shakes his head, his eyes modestly cast down, and Holmes amends ‘a – a companion, then? A beloved companion,’ he adds, softly, and is overcome by a wave of misery. ‘I had one such.’**

**He says no more, but stares into the distance. After a while, Ram Das retreats, soft-footed, to tell Creighton that his guest will not be attending him. It is an hour before Holmes begins to write again, painstakingly encoding his letter. . .**

**_I cannot bear to think of him poor or distressed, Mycroft. He has suffered and lost so much already, and is like to lose more. You know he left me for a wife, and I called it a selfish act, yet I am partly to blame: he would not have done so had I – but it is of no use to repine. I hoped that he might be happy at least, and achieve all he dreamed of, the respectable house, the happy marriage, the children around his feet. Oh, he has been sorely disappointed: would it were possible to remedy those ills which have afflicted him! Would it were possible to save his wife for him despite all . . ._ **

**_As for that venal weasel, Anstruther, he is well enough in his way as a doctor - although in all honesty, I care little who he kills so long as Watson’s reputation – or what rags of it he has left, from what you tell me – does not suffer - but he requires a sharp eye kept upon his defalcations: pray ensure that this is done, and that he is warned against cheating Watson. If you were to tell me that he was pocketing one fee in three – or two, even - before giving over the agreed proportion of the rest, it would not surprise me much. And if Watson’s issue is lack of paying patients, could you not direct some to him? You cannot offer him financial help, but surely there must be something you can do? Why is he working only on the free wards? Speak to Lestrade, make them offer him work with the Yard: give him at least that remnant of our former life. Help him, Mycroft, help him for me, brother. He must not suffer more._ **

**_I am glad, I suppose, that he is seeing my little band, but ensure that he is closely watched, and pray, fee my children generously, as well as feeding them; give them good reason to observe him. If needs be, you must have him forcibly kept safe: you cannot know how low he has been in the past, nor what temptations to self-murder have assailed him. Would that I could return immediately, but I cannot. I cannot. Not without endangering all our plans, and that I know I must not do. What will I do if he is no more when I return? What will be left for me without him? Keep him safe for me, Mycroft, as he and I kept your Juventus for you, even in his last extremity. I am nothing without him, every breath, every moment, his absence torments me._ **

**_Pardon, dear brother: this whining, this complaint is unseemly. Let me turn now to affairs more fitting a man. You will by now have received A7’s report, and the information therein from C23. Pray pass all on to the authorities in England. There are at least five in the league against us besides the rajahs of Hilas and Bunar, malcontents both, and traitors to their people whom they are selling into slavery to the Bear . . ._ **

**Some goodly while later, Holmes looks up to see Ram Das standing once more in the doorway. He pauses from his encoding.**

**‘Forgive me,’ he says, ‘one moment, and I am with you and Creighton. I had no idea I had been so long. I was – thinking.’ He takes up his pen.**

**_. . . my kindest regards to your Juventus, dear brother, and I trust your Greek connexion will continue to prosper. For myself, I hope only to return home to my own beloved companion upon whom, Mycroft, I charge you yet again, as you love me, to keep the most vigilant watch . . ._ **

**‘Yes, Sir.’ Ram Das offers him a small linen towel. ‘Sir – allow me to give you this.’**

**Holmes looks almost stupidly at the linen. It is not until Ram Das touches it to his face, that he realises that he has been weeping again.**

***** 

**Shall We Begin To Wrangle?**

‘Norbury,’ said Watson to me, as we wandered one windy March day among the primroses. I had so far allowed myself to relax from our busy working lives – for we had had a ceaseless flow of cases in the earlier months of the year, and among them the strange case of Mr Grant Munro and his wife – as to indulge both of us with a day spent at leisure in the spring sunshine. I loved to see Watson outdoors, his hair ruffled by the wind, his eyes bright as he observed the world around him. He had been looking pale recently: had I been his doctor I would have prescribed a tonic. 

‘Norbury?’ I asked, taking his arm. My hand settled in the crook of his elbow in our dear, familiar way, and he smiled at me and patted it absently as it lay at rest there. ‘What of Norbury, my dear fellow? Come, Watson, you cannot fire off an accusation like that at me, one which I have asked you most particularly to use when I am at fault, and then not explain yourself. So what of it? Am I becoming a little over-confident in my powers, or is it that I am presently taking insufficient pains over a case? Which is it? Tell me what I must do to make amends.’ 

‘I am applying it more to myself,’ was his answer. ‘Look, Holmes, is that not a fine clump, there by the beech tree? Let me show you . . .’ and he directed us over to a large clump of primroses in full flower, ‘Have you ever seen how finely they are organised?’ He stooped and detached two flowers, handling the little blooms with care. ‘See here, this one, this is a ‘pin’ primrose. The stigma is long, and protrudes slightly; the stamens are short, and cluster around its base. Thus the female part of the blossom is more prominent.’ He gently teased open the centre, and I bent my head to observe the fragile structure. He handed it to me, and showed the other, ‘And this is a ‘thrum’ primrose. The stigma is short, and hidden, but the stamens bearing the pollen are longer, and protrude, so that the male part lies open to the busy bee. Thus cross-fertilisation is achieved, for the insect as it searches for that drop of sweetness at the base of the petals transfers the pollen of one type to the receptive organ of the other. Both grow on the same plant, is that not strange?’ 

‘It is indeed,’ I murmured, taking the other flower from him. I opened my pocket book and laid both between the pages, clasping the book back around them. ‘I shall look at them further when we return, perhaps with the microscope. Thank you, Watson – or no, wait - ’ I stooped, and plucked a few primroses of my own. ‘Oblige me by putting these in your lancet case, would you? They will remain fresher so for dissection and I shall retain those you gave me as pressed specimens in my commonplace book.’ 

He tucked the flowers away, and we walked on. ‘But what of Norbury?’ I asked him again. ‘You say you are applying it to yourself? You are the very prince of diligence, Watson, and I have never known you overreach in confidence. Explain your meaning: I am at a loss to account for your attribution of blame to yourself.’ 

‘I endeavour not to be over-confident – it is not hard when one is faced continually with life and death – but I question whether I am doing enough, Holmes, whether I am ‘sleeping on the case’ as it were.’ He stood still, and I stopped perforce, too. ‘I have been speaking to our police divisional surgeon, Dr Burns-Gibson recently - a man whose medical, and indeed, political, views are much after my own heart. He is of the opinion that we want reform in the profession, in society, and perhaps even in Parliament, and I agree with him. He shares the views of Mrs Besant, and Mr Bradlaugh, and is much interested in advancing them.’ 

‘Watson,’ I felt dismayed by his comments, I confess, ‘Watson, what are you about? Have you fallen in with the Radicals, old fellow? You are sailing deep political waters if you are. They are agitators, many of them, and dangerous to know.’ 

‘Well, you are the one who would have me peruse Winwoode Reade,’ he protested. ‘The logical end of his thinking is that society must reform to do without the yoke, the crushing oppression of religion, the inequalities and injustices of the law, and these are the people who are in the forefront of that movement. You know of Bradlaugh’s struggles, I am sure, and Mrs Besant is a fine example of a reformer. She has attracted obloquy: she is in the eyes of polite society a disgraced woman, yet I cannot but support her views on women and childbirth. Holmes, Holmes, you know how I feel about the girls I see in the hospital.’ 

I did indeed know how he felt. On more than one occasion I had seen him return from Barts weary beyond belief, grim, silent, tight-lipped. He would retreat to his room; in the night I would hear him pacing, and in the morning, I knew he would have wept. His inability to save women in mortal childbirth, the knowledge that their poverty and ignorance made them too vulnerable to resist and too frail to bear and that he could do nothing, bit deep and rankled. I had sometimes wondered whether it was some personal grief from his childhood that rendered him thus sensitive, but I never dared to ask. If health, and the welfare of the poor was, however, a motivating force behind his sudden interest in the groups on the edges of our political system, it would behove me to tread warily. We did not discuss politics, Watson and I, but I suppose for all my bohemian ways, I had been born and bred a Tory, as was Mycroft, and as had been my ancestors in the squirearchy before me. I knew Watson had Liberal, as well as liberal tendencies - he spoke approvingly of Gladstone, for example – but I had not suspected him of adhering to the radical cause. (And for myself, I had the gravest suspicion’s of Gladstone’s motives, not to mention his efforts with the ‘fallen women’ of London. He was another Marquis of Wallsend to my mind, and the hypocrite to end all hypocrites. But Watson was too fine a man to recognise gilded hypocrisy of course: he was no cynic.) 

I agreed with him then, about the need for reform in society, but begged to differ as to the mode of achieving it, to which he pointed out quite correctly that when England had been a land of farmers – tillers of the soil and herders of cattle - it was easier for those of a higher social echelon to care for their dependents, since they were mostly clustered around them in villages, but that now we were an industrial nation it was a very different matter, ‘for there are fewer now, Holmes, who owe their allegiance and living to the squire, and their nourishment and moral teaching to the bounty of the squire’s wife. If ever indeed they did, or such care was universal. 

And do not pretend to be unaware,’ he added, patting my hand again. ‘You keep a band of urchins yourself, the lowest of the low and poorest of the poor, as well as sundry undesirable characters in your pay: you have steeped yourself in the dark life of this city, and in truth you do much good in it. I know you are thinking me a dangerous radical, but I am not so determined a law-breaker as they. I want only to see reform, as do Burns-Gibson, and Mrs Besant, and a good many others. You should come to my club, my dear fellow, and meet the group of men I mean. I am sure you would agree with their views, and some of them are men of true character. Labouchère, for example: now there is a reformer for you.’ 

‘Labouchère!’ It was all I could do not to spit. ‘I do not like him. An oily, devious do-gooder, a very sanctified, poison-lipped villain. He is not at all to my taste, I assure you. And I do not know Mrs Annie Besant, but I do not like her pompous, prating brother, Walter. Bradlaugh is all very well but he is rash and impulsive. But I will meet them if it please you, Watson,’ I added, ‘I would not have you think me closed minded. I am interested in what interests you, of course.’ 

It would in fact have taken rope and the gallows to prevent me from attending whatever meeting he went to with him. It was not just that I feared that his charitable instincts would lead him astray, and that alone, he would pilot his frail ship into dangerous waters; it was, I confess, that I was jealous of his company. That he should spend time with others was natural. That he should like them more, value them more, than me, was not. No other man had a right to his arm, his smiles, his attentions. I would not – could not - tolerate it.. 

‘Well, we will essay the meetings together,’ was all his comment. ‘I have not yet met Labouchère: he is much occupied in the House and with the Egypt Question at present: indeed he is a most indefatigable worker, with many irons in the fire. But the others we should most assuredly meet: Holmes, you are a man of such parts, such standing, that if we could win you to the cause of reform it would be a great thing for us. You liked Burns-Gibson, did you not? And would not object to coming with me? I do so little good in the world,’ he added, wistfully, ‘and there is so much to do. I am unlikely to leave aught of value behind me: even a good name would be something.’ 

‘Why, Watson, what is this? “We could win you?” ’ I queried. I felt truly savage, irritated, alarmed by his words. ‘You make common cause with these men already? Then I must, will-you, nill-you, be part of the game, since are we not brothers? And you do do good in your way and in full measure. You do more in the free wards than others, you give of yourself whenever asked – why, you may not have a practice with a brass plate, but you cannot deny that we have an increasing number of requests at the door at home, and that you have set up a veritable dispensary and consulting room in Mrs Hudson’s kitchen for our young patients. Why do you judge yourself so very harshly, my dear fellow? There is no need for it.’ 

‘I do little enough,’ he repeated, ‘in face of such need one man can not do enough. But men together may, which is why I am glad you will be with us, old boy. I have the greatest faith in your powers, you know.’ 

‘My small success is in problem solving, not in effecting political change,’ I pointed out, ‘but I shall endeavour not to disappoint you, Watson.’ 

‘Oh,’ said he, and patted my hand again, ‘I have faith you will not do that, Holmes.’ 

***** 

We had not engaged further with Watson’s Radical friends when we were embroiled in the very first days of April, with Dr Grimesby Roylott, that antithesis to my good companion, the doctor. It was the first real occasion on which I had had cause to test Watson’s mettle since our encounter with Jefferson Hope, and he did not disappoint. His eye brightened when he saw my display of strength with the poker, and he clapped me on the shoulder, saying ‘I am proud of you, old chap, I did not think you could have done it, and I am damn sure I could not. There is steel wire and whipcord under your fine broadcloth, is there not?’ Then he laughed at me because I blushed at the compliment, and told me I was as shy as a boy and modest as a maid. He liked poor Helen Stoner, and treated her with that delicate, unobtrusive chivalry which so became him – which I did not much mind, since she was attached – and he was stalwart in the face of danger. The merest hint that I might not allow him to accompany me and he hackled like a fighting cock, insisting that he was allowed part of the action. The snake I did not like: I have never liked them – but with him there, sitting close, his breath on my ear, his hand touching mine, or mine on his coat sleeve, I found it easy to be brave. It was a satisfactory case, all in all, despite that it would bring in little money, for Miss Stoner and her betrothed were relatively poor, and so I did not ask a high fee. I told them instead that they might recommend my services to any other of their acquaintance who required them, and that I would be pleased to hear of their eventual marriage now that matters were brought to a satisfactory conclusion. 

‘And will you be?’ Watson asked me, as we walked back in the early hours to the Crown Inn, leaving Miss Stoner with the housekeeper, and her betrothed, Armitage, a rather ineffectual young man who had fretted and fussed around her while she dealt competently with the local police. ‘Pleased to hear of their marriage, Holmes?’ 

‘Of course.’ I could not think of any reason for him to question me. ‘Why would I not be? Do I seem to you to be such a misanthropic wretch as not to rejoice for another’s happiness? I am not, you know.’ 

‘Oh, it is only that you seemed to observe Miss Stoner with a somewhat jaundiced eye, if you don’t mind me saying so. She is a pretty girl, yet you seemed not to think so, and they are clearly greatly attached to each other, yet you did not seem to much regard it, or even wish them well at our parting.’ 

‘Perhaps I was too tired.’ We let ourselves into the silent inn, and crept up the stairs. ‘And I am no great lover of women, as you well know. There is only one bed, Watson, albeit a large one. Pray take it, my dear fellow, and I will content myself with the couch in the sitting room: I do not expect to sleep much.’ 

‘Nonsense, ‘ he replied. ‘Sleep you must and sleep you shall. I know you did not like that snake – neither did I, old fellow; since India and Afghanistan I cannot abide the beastly things – and you were quite pale after you had subdued and caged it. You have real courage, Holmes, to wait out your adversary so quietly, and then to catch it after it had disposed of its owner, when it was almost more dangerous.’ 

‘More dangerous,’ I asked. ‘How so? It had discharged its venom: therefore it had none to expend on me.’ 

‘That is not quite the case,’ he told me, and I knew that I paled further as he did so. ‘Once discharged, the poison sacs are immediately replenished with fresh and more potent venom; moreover some snakes can strike and envenom their victim more than once. Many a man has made that mistake – good heavens, Holmes, you have gone positively grey, sit at once, sit here, and put your head down,’ and he forced me to the sofa and made me bow my head between my knees, ‘oh my dear fellow, I am very sorry: you really do not like them, do you?’ 

‘N-No,’ I uttered, trying in vain to control the weakness that seemed to be invading every limb as I considered the casual way I had handled the beast, ‘oh, oh Watson, you could have been killed – it could have turned on you, and I would not have known. I thought us safe, once the creature had bitten Roylott. Pray forgive me: my ignorance has put you at risk . . .’ I turned away from him, for my gorge was rising at the thought. ‘Oh, my dear Watson . . .’ and a moment later, he was holding my head over the bedroom utensil, which he had dashed for the second, so he told me later, that I turned green about the gills, and into that homely article I was most dreadfully, shamefully sick for quite some while. 

The fit once over, he bathed my head and hands in cool water from the jug, compelled me into the bedroom, stripped me to my underwear, and rolled me in a blanket on the bed. I shivered and protested, but he was ruthless, though gentle-handed, hushing all my muttered imprecations and pleas. I was completely silenced, however, when he stripped himself likewise to his smalls, donned his own blanket, lay down close behind me and covered us both with the counterpane. 

‘Now be quiet,’ he said to me, already sounding drowsy, ‘for although the birds are beginning to sing we have still a few hours before we must return, and I intend us to spend it sleeping. Once you warm up - and this is the best way to do it – you will soon doze off. That was a nasty bout you had there, my poor friend. But Roylott – and Roylott’s snake - were enough to turn anyone’s stomach, it is true.’ 

Within minutes, he was snoring, a gentle, almost musical little snore that made me smile. I did not sleep. I lay, and slowly grew warm, and enjoyed his breath on my neck, the curve of his arm across my waist, for he had flung it over me as he shifted, and the lovely, solid weight of him against my back. I savoured the sight and sound and scent of every minute of the four hours he slept, rising only when he began to stir and wake, so that he should find me washed and decent when he did. He scolded me for not sleeping but I countered that I was feeling infinitely better for the rest, and he must not abuse his doctor’s power over me. We returned to London in the best of spirits, laughing and joking like boys, and recounted the story of the snake to Mrs Hudson, who was much impressed. And although I cautioned Watson that he must not publish the story yet, I enjoyed the stirring tale he made of it when he wrote it up over the course of the following week and gave it me to read. 

‘You did not mention me being sick, however,’ I said to him, wondering a little, ‘or not knowing about the snake, and so putting us both in danger.’ 

‘Of course not,’ he replied, indignantly. ‘I would never expose you in that way, Holmes. I am your Boswell, you know – your very admiring Boswell. And comrades-in-arms do not rat on a friend. We are all of us sometimes sickened by combat, in whatsoever kind or shape it comes. And all of us are prone to error: you are no different. Furthermore, my dear chap, I seem to remember you holding my head for similar reasons but for a much less worthy cause when I was so shamefully inebriated in Dublin last spring. We are quits now, although you have the advantage a trifle, do you not think so?’ 

‘Perhaps,’ I said, and he laughed again, and told me not to doubt it. 

***** 

With regard to our Dublin adventure of the previous year, Watson and I had known for some months that we would not be required to give evidence in the trial of the Phoenix Park murderers, which was to come on later that spring. It had taken nearly a year to unravel the tangled web of conspiracy, for the intricacies of the Fenian groups – the Irish National Invincibles being the one responsible for the murders of Cavendish and Burke – were not to be understood by any mere tyro, and John Mallon, who led the investigation, had had to turn at least one member of the group informer before he could find evidence enough to hang the perpetrators. Our involvement had been through Mycroft, and was necessarily secret, a thing for which I was glad when I considered how deep the assassins were steeped in hatred of the English oppressor, and how probable was the vengeance of their compatriots on those who had discovered the killers. I had some sympathy for the wretched country, much oppressed, much suffering, as had Watson, but I intended no more such involvement that might put my friend at risk. Mycroft delighted in politics, but for me, the narrower field of operation was more fitting. I was no spy, nor wanted to own that title, for what I did covertly in pursuit of criminals was secrecy enough for me. In truth my mind revolted at low cunning: I had always considered spying an ignoble art. 

Sadly, however, we had barely seen Roylott to a well-deserved end when we were once more involved in the affairs of our Irish brethren. This time it was not a case of murder, but the so-called ‘Dynamite Conspiracy’, which involved not dynamite itself, but the production by certain disaffected Irish Americans of sufficient quantity of nitro-glycerine to blow up the Houses of Parliament in a most satisfactory way – satisfactory, of course, to the perpetrators. I was called in at short notice by our colleague Dupré of the Westminster Hospital, with whom we had collaborated on the Lamson case, to join him in the analysis of both the constituent articles of the explosive, and the explosive itself. It was a fascinating chemical study; one that I took care to write up in minute detail in case I should ever need to know how to make the substance myself, and I was grateful to Dupré for inviting me to participate. (It transpired that he did so out of his own sense of gratitude: he confided in me that he had parted from the young man against whom I had warned him, and found a rather less ambitious and more honest recipient of his carnal affections. I hoped for his sake that he had left nothing to chance and would not suffer the blackmail that was the fate of so many inverts.) 

Watson was not pleased that I was working with Dupré again: he thought the man a bad influence on me, since he had offered me drugs. I had diminished my morphine use to an occasional dose, supervised by my good doctor, when sleep proved very elusive, and I was weary to the point of exhaustion, yet could find no rest. He grumbled at the telegram summoning me to Westminster Hospital, insisted on accompanying me to see Dupré for the first occasion of our collaborating, and hovered at my shoulder with a bulldog air of protection. I read a stern ‘no opium’ in his eye, and so, quite clearly, did Dupré, who was at pains to assure us both that he had given up the habit. In the end, Watson made the unfortunate man nervous enough for his hand to shake, so I chased him away to his young patients at Barts, lest he precipitate some dire chemical catastrophe upon us. 

‘I am sorry,’ I said to him later that day – a cold, wet, April day - on his return home, ‘for ejecting you so summarily, but the compound is dangerous if agitated, and poor Dupré’s hands were becoming more tremulous by the moment under the force of your scrutiny. You are most awe-inspiring at times, Watson, are you not? From a gentleman whose manners are generally speaking mild and complaisant, you become a very martinet: no lowly soldier but would jump to do your bidding. Were you thus in the army, my dear fellow? I am glad I was not one of your recruits, if so.’ 

He shrugged, setting down his pocket book on the table, and advancing to the fireside, where I sat curled into my chair, thinking. ‘Oh, you would never have been one of my recruits,’ he said lightly, ‘I would not have tolerated your insubordination and impertinence for a minute, Sir, not one single minute. You would have been under my discipline and learning obedience in short order, and I daresay you would have rebelled to the last point. We should never have got on, you and I in the army, I think, but disputed over my commands.’ 

‘I would have tried, for you deserve obedience.’ I felt stung, somehow, that he should so dismiss me, and my hurt must have bled into my tone of voice, for he placed the pipe he was cleaning back on the mantelpiece, and laid a hand on my shoulder. 

‘Of course you would, my friend. Holmes, Holmes, were you never teased at school, my dear fellow? I spoke but in jest: “no offence in the world” as Hamlet said. Why, I did not mean to give you pain, do not look so cast down.’ 

‘Not, not kindly teased, as you do, Watson,’ I told him, and he pressed my shoulder in silent apology. ‘It was never kind.’ 

‘I forget what a sensitive soul you are.’ He rubbed my upper arm, and I leaned into the pressure, praying that he would continue to touch me. ‘Forgive your rough soldier friend, Holmes. I am sincerely attached to you, you must know that, and would not hurt you for the world. I am sure you would be the most gallant of soldiers: as I have said to you before you are one of those mettlesome colts that make the best cavalry chargers, while I am a mere plodding infantry mule, a workhorse of workhorses. But let us leave this sorry subject: tell me instead what you have been doing with Dupré, for I do not really understand this business of the nitrous glycerine, or whatever the substance is called, only that it is apparently extremely volatile and dangerous.’ 

‘Nitro-glycerine,’ I reproved him, moving to my table. ‘ I have some of it in my flask here: pray approach and observe it, Watson. It is slightly viscous and oily, and, in its natural state, is colourless, but this has acquired a delicate shade of pink by reason of how it was kept by Gallagher and his accomplices in rubber fisherman’s stockings. It is a compound of course, and in general produced and made popular by a gentleman by the name of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish scientist of some renown.’ 

‘And he designed it as an explosive?’ Watson bent over the table, taking up the flask, and gently rotating it to note how it clung to the glass. ‘But how does one set light to a liquid? Does it burn, as oil does, with a wick? Or must one actually take a flame to it? It seems such an innocuous substance. You say this is what the perpetrators of the conspiracy wished to use to blow up Parliament? How very curious it is to think it could be done with this simple fluid. And why keep it in fisherman’s waders?’ 

He rotated the flask again, and in sudden alarm I removed it from his careless grasp. ‘It is safest kept in a waterproof, flexible container, rather than in glass. Moreover, it is not a simple fluid at all, Watson, and the process of obtaining the pure and effective mixture is exceedingly complex. It was first created in Italy in 1847, by Ascanio Sobrero, but he considered it too dangerous to use. However, it has been quite common since Nobel began to produce it for use in mines, although even he has not dealt with it without danger, for an explosion of the stuff killed his younger brother twenty or so years ago, and he has blown up his manufactory with it - twice, I believe. He has now developed a preparation of it which is less volatile,’ 

I set the flask down with extreme care, and took up a small package which I opened for him. ‘This is a diatomaceous earth common in Germany, where it is termed kieselgur – which of course our newspapers, in reporting this sorry case, are quite failing to spell correctly - and mixing these two substances, triturating them slowly and carefully to a paste, renders the explosive less dangerous. In such a state he terms it ‘dynamite’ and it is now sold for mining operations, where it is desired to shift great masses of rock. I begged a little of the liquid and the earth from Dupré, in order to experiment.’ 

‘I see,’ Watson ran his fingers through the fine, brownish-grey earth, lifted them to his nose, and sniffed. ‘I assume he derives the name from the Greek, ‘dynamos’, if it is indeed so powerful. Yet it seems unobjectionable enough like this, the liquid and the solid both. And what do you intend to do to this substance when you have mixed it?’ 

‘I thought to test its power, and wondered if you would like to assist,’ I told him. ‘We could make some together and shape it into its little sticks. But I have run out of sodium carbonate, or washing soda, as most people know it, and to make dynamite, I must first obtain soda from Mrs Hudson, for that must go into the compounded mix as well. I might ask her for some now, I think, so as to lose no time, and to have all ready for our experiments with it on the morrow.’ 

‘I rather think I had better go down myself and ask her,’ he replied with a smile at which I wondered. ‘She is a long-suffering lady, but she might not look with favour on explosives, Holmes. And are you sure we should be doing this at all?’ 

‘Of course.’ I opened the flask, and withdrew a drop of the oily fluid with a pipette. ‘It is not so dangerous in small quantities, and I am not intending to blow up a lot of it. I merely wish to ascertain the strength of this particular mixture of the solution for myself, since it was not made by an expert, and has not been tested. But for now, I shall just make do with testing the liquid’s power. Observe, Watson.’ 

As he looked on with a flattering degree of interest, I placed a wooden board on a chair by the window, and dropped a small quantity of the fluid onto it. ‘All I have now to do is to place the liquid under pressure, and you will see the reaction.’ 

‘And how will you do that?’ I was sorry to see him edge away a little, and motioned him closer, so that he could observe the effect rather more clearly. 

‘Simply with this, my dear fellow.’ I took a hammer, and stood poised to rap it sharply into the little puddle. ‘Now as I touch it with the hammer, it will – good heavens!’ 

The flash was so bright that it was some time before the after-image faded from my retina, and groping blindly for Watson to ensure that he was unharmed, I found that he was in a similar dazzled state. I blinked water from my eyes, and looked at him in alarm, for he was heaving great gasps of breath, and tears were running down into his moustache as he squeaked and crowed in a most disconcerting fashion. 

‘Watson, Watson,’ I cried, patting him about the shoulders, ‘Watson, I am so sorry: pray tell me where you are injured. If I had thought it would go off like – Watson, are you – why are you – out of breath, are you hurt?’ 

He shook his head, submitting to my touch but appearing to be completely incapable of speech, and waved at me. I waited anxiously while his paroxysm subsided, when he gasped out , ‘No, no, Holmes, I am unharmed, I - ’ and then he was heaving and shaking again with uncontrolled spasms of – 

‘You’re laughing at me,’ I accused him, suddenly understanding. 

He nodded, tears still streaming down his face, while he brought himself sufficiently under control to be intelligible. I waited, mortified and silent, until he stopped, mopped his face with his handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. I could not for the life of me see what it was he found so risible and felt quite offended by his unseemly mirth. 

‘I do not think,’ I began, trying for an air of hauteur, ‘that there is anything to - ’ but then he surged forward, clasped me fervently in his strong arms and (there is no other word for it) hugged me with some force, laughing the while. 

‘Oh Holmes,’ he said (chuckled, giggled even, if such a word can be used to describe a man’s laugh) ‘Holmes, do you have any idea how much I love living here with you? How much – well, amusement - I have? I have never laughed like this, nor felt so happy, nor been so well companioned in my life before - ’ 

‘But I have just caused an explosion,’ I expostulated, very much non-plussed. ‘I certainly intended to demonstrate what is called the ‘brisance’ of the material, but I had no idea it would detonate with such alacrity and force. I must make sure and telegraph to Dupré – or no, Janey can find one of the boys and send a message, that will be better – it must be because it has been improperly kept, and thus is deteriorating rapidly – but I assure you Watson, it is no laughing matter – why are you laughing still? I do not in the least see what I have done that is so amusing.’ 

‘No,’ he sighed, releasing me (he had been looking into my face, his hands on my shoulders all the while I had been speaking) and turning to pick up the damaged board, ‘no, you do not in the least see, my dear man, and that is not the least part of your charm. What a fellow you are, Holmes. How is it possible for a man to be so wise and so simple, so erudite and so innocent at once? Pray send out your message at once, for if Dupré does indeed have quantities of this stuff, and it is all as volatile – good heavens, this board, which I now perceive, by the way, to be our new breadboard, is split quite through as well as burned, and I do believe the lower window pane is cracked too, so we will have to tape it until the glazier can be called – he is in sore need of your warning. Then let us clear up this little experiment, and settle in for a cosy evening. Or better still, Holmes, do you tidy up the mess in here, and I will deal with Mrs Hudson about the window – at least the chair is not damaged – and summon a boy to take your message. Certainly we cannot have the whole of Westminster hospital reduced to rubble, or we, not the conspirators in this case, will be for the long drop or the gaol. Write your note for me now, my dear chap, while I go and wash my face, lest my tears lead Mrs Hudson to think me grief stricken for no cause. And do not take it amiss that I laughed. It is only that I am happy – happy, Holmes, when for so long I thought I might never be again, after the war. There are times here with you when I feel like a mere heedless boy again, or the carefree, playful child I was never truly able to be.’ 

He sobered then, turned from casting the broken pieces of board into the fire (where they blazed immediately with a fierce, leaping flame, there being still minute quantities of unspent nitro-glycerine upon them) and gazed at me with eyes brimming with such affection that I was nearly brought to tears. ‘Are you happy too, Holmes? I know it is not a question one man is wont to ask of his mate. Not a usual question at all for two reserved English gentlemen to debate, one with another. But tell me, my dear fellow, are you happy?’ 

‘Yes,’ I said, looking at him as he stood, his hair picking up the firelight (I swear it had sometimes a most becoming auburn tint to it, among the gold and silver) and his eyes very blue, and bright. He was so open, so kind, so loving – yes, loving - to me, and I loved him so very much. He gave me all he could: who was I to pine for more? He did not know me for an invert, he was not one himself. Why would he ever suspect me of pining for more? And I was happy. I was his only true friend; mine was the gift of making him happy and caring for him. It was I with whom he laughed, his merriment lightening his whole demeanour until he seemed, as he had said he felt, a mere boy. It was I who owned the privilege of comforting him when he was sad, and who was comforted in my turn. ‘Yes, Watson. Despite all, I am happy.’ 

‘Good,’ he said, briskly, setting sentiment aside, and went to wash, and then to speak to Mrs Hudson. I tidied, meticulously for once, poked up the sluggish fire, cleaned and filled his pipe and my own, and set his slippers to warm. When he returned, he was bearing a tray of fine roast beef sandwiches, prepared as only our Mrs Hudson could, and a plate of her Dundee cake and Wensleydale cheese, so I hastened to pour us two glasses of my most expensive burgundy. He took in my preparations with an appreciative glance, and bade me put on my dressing gown before going upstairs to achieve his own dishabille. Thus comfortable, we drew our chairs to the fire, and sat over our simple meal, sipping our wine and then smoking a pipe together while I told him the story of my investigation. 

‘Some of these men, Watson, have been in England since January or February, preparing their explosives in immense quantities. Thomas Gallagher is the moving force; he is an Irishman whose family emigrated about fifteen years ago, and he is as rabid a Fenian as you might find, hand in hand with ‘the Old Man,’ a fellow called O’Donovan Rossa. But the man who has made our explosive is Albert Whitehead, who is a chemist. He took a small shop in Birmingham, ostensibly for the purpose of selling paint, which he was to mix himself, and there he proceeded to order from two different chemists huge quantities of nitric and sulphuric acids, totalling over 1,700 pounds in weight of nitric, and over 3,400 of sulphuric, and - ’ 

‘So much!’ Watson interjected, leaning forward, ‘This was no small plot then!’ 

‘ – and over two hundredweight of glycerine, as well as sundry carboys of linseed and boiled oil and turpentine - ’ 

‘ – to give colour to his story of selling paint, as you mentioned, Holmes, but it was the acid and the glycerine which he intended – ’ 

‘ – precisely, Watson, to turn into the nitro-glycerine, and did in fact do so, in a furnace in the kitchen, which he vented by means of a galvanised iron funnel leading to the chimney. The fisherman’s waders were but one of a number of rubber receptacles he obtained, the liquid being safer to transport so, and being transferred in them to a chest which he conveyed by devious means to Gallagher in London. All in all, after washing and refining there was left a quantity of three hundredweight of nitro-glycerine, which would produce twelve hundredweight of dynamite - ’ 

‘ – more than half a ton, Holmes – more than half a ton, when only twenty-five pounds in weight was used to blow up the local Government Board in March? How very great an explosion would it have - ’ 

‘I have calculated that it would be sufficient to devastate an area of London in square form from the Thames in the south to Oxford Street in the north, then extending east to Chancery Lane, and west to the Haymarket,’ I replied, pouring him another glass of wine. ‘Come, Watson, you are not eating: do take some of this excellent cake. I worked it out it for Dupré, who has been asked by the gentlemen of the press. But I am glad we sent him a note, for it seems to me that the article is more unstable by half than it should be, and I rather dread some accident. Perhaps after all, we should not compound it into dynamite, Watson, lest worse befall.’ 

His face fell. ‘Could we not just experiment with a very small amount?’ he asked me wistfully, ‘I have never seen dynamite made, and I should dearly like to, Holmes, if you should not very much object. We had perhaps better not attempt to detonate it here, but if we were to take it out onto Hampstead Heath, for example, or even as far away as Richmond Park, where there would be no-one to startle but the stags? If I were to contrive a length of slow-match – we were accustomed to prepare it in the Army – we could use it as a fuse and detonate our explosive at no risk to ourselves.’ 

‘I have no gunpowder - ’ I protested, but he waved away my objection. 

‘I have cartridges enough and to spare for my revolver, Holmes, it is no great matter to dissect them and obtain enough. Do say that we may, old chap?’ 

I capitulated, for I could not bear to see him disappointed, and the following day I left Dupré to fend for himself, having warned him again the previous evening about the nitro-glycerine, and suggested that he desensitise it by the addition of quantities of ethanol to render it less dangerous. Watson had contrived a length of slow match with the gunpowder from half a dozen cartridges, a solution of sugar of lead, which I had been using for another experiment, and an old cotton sock, which he slit into strips and sewed together most handily before filling his match with powder. I, meanwhile, carefully mixed nitro-glycerine into my diatomaceous earth to obtain a thick paste, which I shaped into a small, slender pencil, and wrapped in paper greased with one of our candles. Our preparations concluded, we raised our glasses to a successful experiment, and turned in to our separate, alas, beds. Watson roused me at first light, and we took a cab to Richmond Park with our cargo. 

Our experiment was entirely successful. We set it up in a hidden hollow in a remote area of the park, having first ensured that there were no deer in the vicinity. Watson’s slow match smouldered along the ground until it reached my little stick of dynamite, which detonated with a surprisingly loud noise, scattering earth and grass everywhere, leaving a scar more than a yard in diameter, and besmutting both of us liberally with falling dust and leaf debris. 

‘It is indeed well-named with the word dynamite,’ said my companion, clutching my sleeve in excitement. ‘Holmes, its power is very great: is it not a pity that we cannot experiment again with a larger amount of the stuff? I should so much like to do so, should not you?’ 

‘Indeed I should,’ I replied, brushing first him, and then myself down, ‘but Watson, I think we should perhaps leave now. That was a louder noise than I expected, and I am loath to attract attention, my dear fellow.’ 

There were no immediate repercussions from our little experiment, but two or three days later I received a visit from Lestrade. He hemmed and hawed and hesitated a good deal over his enquiry, but finally asked me whether I had been in Richmond Park recently. I owned to the visit, and he informed me that a cabbie who had transported us back to our habitation in Baker Street had laid an information against us as being Fenians and anarchists, based on the conversation he had overheard – he must have been stretching his ears like a donkey’s, the wretched man – and the smell of gunpowder and explosive hanging about us. 

‘He appears to think you are connected to Gallagher’s gang,’ he said to me, ‘but of course, Mr Holmes, I knew you could not be, nor our Dr Watson neither. I disabused him of his notions – he was very vehement against you, averring that he heard you mention Gallagher, and Whitehead, for the news of their arrest is bruited widely about the street – and once I had dealt with him I thought then to warn you, in case of any further problem. All of London is in a ferment to think how much explosive these men brought to the capital (and that ass Dupré telling the world how great an area would have been devastated has not helped) so there is a fever to catch them.’ 

His eyes twinkled, and his pointed nose twitched. ‘I should, however, very much like to know what you and Dr Watson were doing in Richmond Park so early, to return reeking of gunpowder and earth, as was reported to us, but I daresay you will not tell me, charm I never so wisely, will you, Mr Holmes?’ 

I smiled down at the little man as he stood there, warming his back at our fire, and rising and falling on his heels a little, his sharp face as intent as a hunting dog on a scent. I could almost see his ears prick forward. 

‘Well, my conscience is causing me pain over that ferment,’ I told him, ‘since it was I who provided our esteemed colleague Dupré with his information, and thus it is (in part at least) my fault if you are policing unruly streets. So I will tell you, Lestrade, for your ear only, that having tested a small quantity of the nitro-glycerine, and finding it answer rather too sharply to the hammer, I warned Dupré twice about its volatility, made up a little of it into dynamite, and Watson and I took it off to a quiet area to perform our own little test. Consequent to which,’ I continued, ignoring the bark of laughter with which he greeted my revelation, ‘Dupré and I managed to determine that the entire quantity was degenerating to the point at which it would have exploded within a day or two anyway had it not been found, and were at pains to desensitise it and render our streets safer. Behold me, then, a public benefactor: no recreant or anarchist am I! And nor is Watson, of course. His probity is without a flaw: I do not know how you could even suspect him.’ 

‘I rather suspect you of leading him astray, knowing your fondness for chemistry,’ Lestrade straightened himself. ‘Well, the case will be determined very shortly, Mr Holmes. It is curious how it came to light you know; it was through a young man in the police force who had a similar nose for detection and a like curiosity to your own.’ 

‘Yes, the sergeant, Richard Price,’ I agreed. ‘It is indeed, curious. I have met him at Westminster with Dupré, and it strikes me, Lestrade, that he is wasting his time as a mere policeman in Birmingham. He has displayed extraordinary initiative and intelligence: he it was who first noticed the large deliveries of chemicals to the shop, and elected to investigate them of his own accord. He was made suspicious by the contents of the shop, by Whitehead’s wearing two suits of clothes for protection from burns, and those clothes being much burnt by acids. He determined to pursue the matter further, entered the shop with a skeleton key in the small hours of the succeeding night, and saw enough to justify entering again with the Chief Constable, Mr Ferndale, and Inspector Black - and then in arresting Whitehead.’ 

‘He must have had some knowledge of chemistry to enable him to determine that it was nitro-glycerine being made,’ remarked Lestrade. ‘That in itself is not so very usual in the force, Mr Holmes. It is M. Dupré and your good self we rely on for that, as we do upon Dr Burns-Gibson and your own dear doctor for medical advice.’ 

‘And neither Dupré nor myself truly belong to you. Now this man, Price, impressed me most favourably, Lestrade. He is of poor and common stock, but an auto-didact, having attended the evening Science lectures available to the working public to learn about electricity and chemistry. Does it not seem a pity that he cannot work with you and put that curiosity to a better use than walking the beat? I am sure he would be receptive to an offer, and should the cost of his, and his family’s, removal to London be prohibitive for him, then Watson and I would assist, quite anonymously, of course. It would be comparatively little and I daresay I can make it up by fleecing some rich client or other over a lost jewel or a rogue heir.’ 

‘And it will not be the first time for either of those things, Mr Holmes, as I well know. You have sponsored several into our force, and all of them are fine young men. Well, well, I must leave you now that that is all is cleared up, Sir, but do not go exploding any more dynamite, if you please. It makes our cabbies nervous.’ 

‘But the worst of all of it was,’ I said later, when I told Watson of Lestrade’s visit, ‘That the good Inspector thinks it was I who led you astray, when in truth, dear boy, it was you who took me by the hand and beguiled me into evil-doing, for yours was the suggestion that we should blow up our dynamite in Richmond Park.’ 

***** 

The “Dynamite Conspiracy’ once resolved – although I could see that the underlying issue, that of Home Rule for Ireland, was not going to disappear – I had hoped that there might be some rather more complex cases to amuse me, for my brain rebelled at stagnation, and then the temptations to lose myself in morphia began to tease at me, insinuating themselves into my mind with a force I found hard to resist. I mentioned this to Watson, as we wandered one late June day in the park among other strolling couples. The sky was clear and blue, and I had hesitated to raise the subject with him - I did not want to spoil his fragile content. He had had a hard couple of months, for his work with me brought him into many cases where his medical knowledge was invaluable, but his too-ready sympathies were painfully wrung. I needed – something, and what that something was was not forthcoming. 

I needed something? Let me be honest. I needed him, with an increasing hunger that left me hollow and desperate. I had no morphia to quell my desires, no mechanical means of curbing my imperious flesh, and no intention of making him the subject of my fantastical longings: relieved, even satiated I might be on occasion, but I was never satisfied. Sometimes I did not know how long I could go on like this, silently desirous, hopeless, yearning - and I almost resolved to put an end to the torment, to declare that we should part – but he was so dear a friend, as well as a love, that I could not bring myself to do it. So I fed myself on scant hope – and though well nigh starving on it was yet better nourished than had we parted and I had never seen him more in this life or any other, if any other were to be. 

‘If the temptation is strong upon you, perhaps we should remove you from its grasp, rather than remove it from you. We could run down to the country for a couple of weeks,’ he suggested, when I broached the issue. ‘You are looking jaded, I can see that, and to say truth, I am in need of some time out of London myself. That last case of mine at the hospital . . . the burned child . . .’ and he shivered, despite the warmth. ‘A clearer atmosphere, perhaps, some good hard walking to exhaust you in a healthier way, a little botanising or geology – they might do you good. The heat here is enervating, and the air unclean.’ 

I pressed his arm in silent sympathy. ‘And they would be good for you too, Watson. Can we contrive it, do you think? The work on Gallagher paid well enough: we might live simply and cheaply for a few weeks.’ 

‘And Mrs Hudson might go to her friend’s in Margate and take the girl with her. Yes, let us do it, Holmes. Where should you like to go? Bournemouth is pretty at this time of year: we might visit Boscombe again– or stay, should you like to be nearer London? Perhaps directly south then, to Eastbourne?’ 

‘Somewhere lonely,’ I told him. ‘I am weary, Watson: “odi profanum vulgus et arceo,” if you recall your Horace from school. ‘Do you remember? “ . . . somnus agrestium lenis virorum . . .” Can you go on? I hate the vulgar crowd, and so avoid them . . . a farmer’s calm slumber . . .?’ 

‘I think so: “ . . . non humilis domos fastidit umbrosamque ripam” is that how it goes? Disdains neither the, the humble cottage, the shady river bank . . . and I forget - ’ 

‘Nor the soft breeze, my boy,’ I supplied for him: “non Zephyris agitata Tempe,” nor valley gentled by the Western wind. Could we, do you think?’ 

He stopped then, and observed me closely. ‘It is not just the morphia is it? Holmes, are you suffering from your melancholy? Is it the black mood upon you again?’ 

‘A little,’ I owned. ‘Forgive me, Watson: it must be tedious for you to live with a fellow who is forever either up in the attics or down in the cellar. I did warn you, however, that I was subject to moods during which I no longer wished to speak. I fear one is approaching me now: a reaction, no doubt, to our busy spring followed by a dearth of stimulation. I feel myself slowly sinking, I must confess. At such times the – the temptation is to resort to anything – I hate the desolation, the emptiness.’ 

‘Then let us away,’ he said, setting us in motion again. ‘Leave all to me, Holmes: I shall contrive it just as you require, and we shall be out of London before you know it. I cannot have you falling into the morbs, old fellow, not when we are doing so well with avoiding the morphia. And I should be grateful for clean air myself.’ 

***** 

The following Friday found us in a cart, jolting painfully over a rough track, while I huddled in a rug against the sharp evening wind that assaulted us. Watson was sitting on the box, chatting with revolting cheerfulness to the yokel who drove us (although if he could understand more than one word in seven of the wretched man’s accent, I would have been surprised) while I propped myself up as best as I could amid our bags and boxes. I had, despite my best intentions, descended even further into my own private, peculiar little hell than before. Work, music, food – all were tasteless to me: it was as if some dulling shroud, some grey, clinging veil interposed itself between my vision and the world. The sun had no warmth, the very air no savour. Even my hearing diminished, sounds appearing to come from an immense distance. Every day, Watson commanded me to make my toilet, so that I was at least clean, but I could do nothing else but lie on the sofa in a stupor without sleep. Eventually, the wheels rumbled to a halt, and Watson let down the cart’s tailgate so I could stumble out, stiff and sore with long sitting. I looked around. I had demanded loneliness, and this was indeed lonely: the waning light showed ours to be the only habitation within sight. A rough track led into the gathering dusk, but other than that, there was no sign that humanity existed. The cottage itself was small, but looked, from the outside at least, clean under new limewash. 

‘Ends of the earth, Watson?’ 

He was unpacking our belongings from the cart, but he turned to me with that kind smile of his. ‘Indeed. I am sorry it took so long, my dear fellow, but we shall soon be comfortable. Go you in, and get warm: there should be a fire already.’ 

It was not long before he had transported all our boxes into the little hall where I was standing, engaged in contemplating the curious bubbles in the thick glass pane in the door. He led me to the sofa drawn up before a blazing fire in what I took to be the parlour, and made me lie down. Blankets appeared as if from nowhere, and divested of my outer garments and shoes, my tie loosened and removed, and my cold feet in new woollen socks, I reclined, if not at ease in my mind, at least comfortable in body. He bustled around quietly while I lay, gazing into the fire, musing idly upon the chemistry of the flames dancing in the grate. It was a driftwood fire: streaks of blue and lavender mingled with the gold. I could have watched for hours, resting there almost in a state of catatonia. When Watson came in and handed me a cup of soup I would have waved it away, but he compelled me to drink, and when I had finished, smoothed my hair with his hand, and covered me close with the blanket, telling me that he would leave me there to sleep. It seemed to me that this would not do, so I held his hand and begged him to stay with me. 

‘Very well,’ he said, ‘but release me for a moment, old man, while I make myself comfortable. I promise I will come back.’ 

It was some time later that I woke from what seemed to have been an interminably long sleep, to find Watson, fully dressed, stretched in a chair by my side, with his feet up on a stool. In the pale dawn light, his face was grey and worn, and the state of his chin showed that he had not shaved for some time. Fingering my own chin, it appeared I was in a similar state, and I rather wondered that I had been so slovenly as to omit my usual morning toilet. My mouth was dry and stale, as if I had been speaking for hours, and when I coughed, experimentally, my throat was also parched. I gulped down the glass of water that I found by my sofa, and feeling a little restored, leaned forward to wake Watson, who looked desperately uncomfortable. 

‘Rouse up, old chap, lying there will do your shoulder and leg no good at all. What time is it? I seem to have mislaid my watch.’ 

He groaned, his eyes still closed, and reached under the chair, dragging his watch up by the chain. ‘It is five in the morning, Holmes. Could you not have chosen a more civilised time to come round after two days of near stupor? Go back to sleep until the day is properly aired for heavens’ sake: you know how I hate early mornings.’ 

‘Two days? What have you done? Have you slept, or changed your clothes? Eaten? Have you been with me all this time?’ 

‘Well just over two days, and yes, I have, since for some reason you were loath to see me depart. I have both slept, and washed and eaten, when you were most deeply cradled in the arms of Morpheus. You have slept – or lain with your eyes closed – since Friday evening, my dear fellow, and it is now Monday morning. God only knows where your mind has been but I hope it was pleasant for you at least, since it was difficult to watch for me. You spoke but briefly to me on Saturday, and yesterday not at all.’ He rose to his feet, yawning and stretching. ‘I see you will not go back to sleep: could you eat?’ Are you hungry?’ 

‘As a hunter,’ I swung myself off the sofa, then staggered as I rose to my feet and waves of dizziness assailed me. ‘Perhaps I had better sit for a minute, Watson, but a piece of bread and some milk would be very acceptable, if you would be so kind.’ 

‘Not just acceptable but imperative,’ he grunted, for he had caught me under the arms and heaved me inelegantly back onto my couch. ‘Lie there, and I shall bring you your breakfast. You must eat and regain your strength.’ 

‘I had soup, I seem to recall,’ I protested, as he covered me again with the blankets. ‘I am too warm now, Watson, you need not swaddle me like a babe.’ 

‘You are half-dead with hunger, and weak as a kitten,’ he told me, his hand tightening on my shoulder, ‘and all there is here is bone. You could not straighten a poker in your current state, you foolish man, you have near starved yourself. Well, I will not have you fainting from inanition on my watch. And the soup, for your information, was nearly sixty hours ago, and you had not eaten all day before it. Be still, and do as you are told.’ 

‘How will you procure breakfast?’ I asked him, ‘You told me you had taken a place with no live in servant, and surely no-one from the village, if there is a village, will be here so early.’ 

‘There is bread, butter, ham and eggs, and I can make shift to cook them myself, of course. Most soldiers can make shift to cook, as well as to sew: I have told you, we must often fettle for ourselves in the army. And for the rest of our time here, we shall either tramp to some hostelry, or you will make do with my cooking. We have cheese, and the aforementioned ham, and a round of beef to cut at, with pickles and cresses and cucumbers. I brought wine, and beer we can have from the farm. We shall do very well on our own, never you fear.’ 

‘What of tea?’ I asked, hopefully, ‘Or coffee?’ 

‘Patience, Holmes,’ he sighed, and vanished into what I took to be the kitchen. I lay, waiting for my breakfast, and contemplated my mood. Usually, after one of these periods of catatonia, I would waken in pain, my head throbbing, nauseous and aching as the morphia I had taken to medicate the dreadful emptiness ebbed from my brain and body, leaving me spent and weary. My mind would retain a vague recollection of bespelled dreams, of purple tinged landscapes, oddly angular, or of lofty vaulted halls stretching into a blue distance that elongated itself into infinity as I endeavoured to approach its end. Endless incarnadine seas lapped on grey shores lit by a light that was neither sun nor moon, and always, wherever I walked, there was the sense that some unseen shadow dogged my footsteps. I shivered, and became aware that Watson was standing in the doorway watching me, his eyes anxious. I smiled at him, and his face instantly cleared – and I wondered that such a man as I so faulty, so bedevilled by my wretched mind, could inspire affection in one so stalwart and straightforward. 

‘There you are again,’ he said, limping forward, ‘Oh, do not mind this, it is just a temporary stiffness: it will go off when we walk. I am glad to see you back to yourself. Eat this, Holmes, and then you must bathe. There is only a hip-bath, but the water in the copper is hot, and I have laid all ready for you in the scullery.’ 

I bit cautiously into the ham sandwich he offered me, and found my appetite come back with a rush. He placed my tea on the bedside table. 

‘Is it good? You can taste it properly?’ 

I nodded, devouring the bread in great bites as my stomach pleaded to be filled. 

‘How long since your food has had savour, Holmes? You began your descent some days before you spoke to me about a holiday did you not? I begin to recognise the signs now, so I shall know better next time, and we will get ourselves to some retreat where I can look after you properly. Oh, my dear fellow, you should have told me. I would not condemn you for it, not I. I wish I could have done more to help.’ 

‘You did help. It is better with you here,’ I told him. ‘I have taken nothing for it, this time, no drugs or stimulants. Usually I cannot bear the emptiness, the dark cloud of melancholy that seems to encompass me, to weigh me down, but I knew you were there, Watson, and it helped.’ 

‘I am glad of it. It is a joy to me to be able to be of use, when you have done so much to help me. Drink your tea, and let us prepare for the day. I have not even unpacked yet, and there is much to do. I must explore the garden: I took the cottage with garden produce, and I should like to see if there is fruit to be had. There is a cherry tree, but I fear most have gone to feed the birds.’ 

‘Must we unpack?’ I looked out of the window, where the sun was beginning to turn all to gold. ‘I saw nothing of this place when we arrived. Where are we, Watson?’ 

‘The nearest town of any size is Eastbourne, but we sit above it, high on the Down. There is no village nearby: you demanded solitude, and save for a neighbouring farm, solitude you have. The garden is walled, and sheltered from the wind, and from the land adjoining it there is a path – precipitous enough, but secure in dry weather – to the shore. I have brought your microscope and your glass slides, your books – or some of them, at least, and your violin, and a quantity of paper for myself, which you may share if you wish to write. But you will do better, I think, to examine the land and the shore around you, and draw deductions about them. And we can walk, until you are tired, or we can drive into Eastbourne if you wish for civilisation and company.’ 

‘Drive! We have no means of summoning a carriage, Watson, that I can see.’ 

‘We have a dog cart, and an elderly mare called Ruby. I am told she is quite placid and well behaved, and although she is, I daresay, not what either of us is used to, we shall do very well with her. Which reminds me, I had better give the poor beast her oats, for she will have been waiting this hour or more, and then I must turn her out to graze. There is a boy coming from the farm down the lane to set all fair in the stable, and he will bring us fresh milk and bread, and, indeed, aught else we desire. You see, Holmes, I have taken good care of you.’ 

‘You always take good care of me.’ My heart beat hard and painfully in my beast as I contemplated how well he did, indeed, take care of me. ‘I think I should like to explore the garden: will that suit you? And a walk?’ 

‘If your strength allows.’ He held out his hand to me to pull me up. ‘Come then, let us begin the day. I am so glad, more happy than I can well express, to see you better and speaking like yourself again, Holmes.’ 

‘The clouds have lifted, thanks to you. Go and feed our equine, Watson, and I promise I will not use all the water in the copper. I am a very sloven, but even you need to shave: a beard does not suit your military style of neatness.’ 

***** 

We passed a halcyon month: my Watson’s company, the scenery, the weather all conspired to heal my melancholy. I had thought that I would find it tedious, without work, without cases, without London, where I could sit in the midst of the city and feel it alive about me, but here was another, quieter kingdom into which I entered as if born for its commanding. Watson and I fell very quickly into a routine: we would rise early and, on fine days, make our way down the narrow path to the sea, strip, and fling ourselves into the waves, there to disport ourselves, dolphin-like, until the cold drove us towel-wrapped, blue and shivering back to the cottage, where hot coffee, ham and eggs soon warmed us up. Watson usually wrote in the mornings, while I botanised, and sometimes even drew – for the flora was unique to the area, and I contemplated a monograph – or simply lay and drowsed in the garden near the raspberry canes and currant bushes, raising a hand now and again to pluck some particularly tempting berry. After luncheon we would walk for hours, conversing, laughing, or simply silent in the dear intimacy of two men who know each other well, and are completely at their ease. We would end our walk at some humble inn, dine, drink our beer, and ramble back together as the July dusk deepened into night. We lived the most rustic of idylls: alone in an innocent rural Arcadia. 

There were wet days, but they were few. On one of them, I had been lounging beneath the cherry tree – which we had ruthlessly stripped of its remaining fruit -when a squally shower blew in from the sea, and drenched me unceremoniously. I gathered my books, raced for the door, and precipitated myself, books and all, into the cottage. At that moment, a sharp pain assailed me, and brushing at its source by reflex, I discovered I had been stung by a bee which must have been on my book. The little creature, its wings soaked and bedraggled by the fat summer drops, was crawling on the table, mortally wounded, for in my removing it from my hand, it appeared that I had wrenched the barb not only from my flesh, but also from the insect’s very bowels. My cry of pain had alerted Watson, who flung down his pen and hastened to me, grasping my hand between his and observing the puncture. 

‘The sting is quite out: nothing remains,’ he declared. 

‘I have killed it Watson,’ I said, softly, and for some ridiculous reason, the tears rose to my eyes. ‘I did not mean to, poor wretched little thing, but see, it is dying.’ 

‘So do they all,’ he replied, pragmatically. ‘Have you never been bee-stung before, Holmes? It is the nature of the honey bee: unlike other insects of their order, they die defending themselves or their hive and the store of honey therein. Wasps do not, and nor do solitary bumble bees, but the honey bee is a martyr. Did you not know?’ 

‘I have never had cause to know,’ I murmured, ‘Watson, deliver the coup de grace if you would. I cannot bear to see it struggle. No, I did not know. I know very little about these insects: if you were to ask me about blowflies, or maggots or such carrion feeders I could inform you of all their habits, since it pertains to my work, but I have never had cause to learn about the bee save as producers of honey and inhabitants of hive or skep. In Africa, I believe, they nest in hollow trees, and of course beeswax – our candles are made of beeswax – and they are matriarchal, answering to their queen, but other than that, no. What are you doing there with it?’ 

‘Entomologists use killing jars containing ether.’ He took his bag from under the table, removed a small bottle, and by manipulating the stopper, allowed a drop of the contents to fall upon the insect, which immediately became still. ‘If I were to crush it, you should not like it, and a drop of ether is the kindest way. I thought also that you might like to examine it more closely, if you knew nothing about their anatomy or physiology. There, it is out of its misery. Your hand is already reddening, but I believe you received only a little venom: you were quick to remove the bee, and the barb with it. A little bicarbonate of soda and water will alleviate that.’ 

‘I must set up my microscope. Watson: may I trouble you for a corner of the table? And have you brought your lancet case? Thank you, my dear fellow, now if you were to pass me a spill from the jar on the mantelpiece I can attenuate it to a fine point to serve as a probe. I have no book on the subject of bees: do you think if we were to send to town early enough tomorrow we could obtain one? I have no idea what there is to be had, but there are beekeepers enough – in fact if this is a domesticated honey bee, then there may be one in the vicinity. And I must have a new notebook: there is clearly much to be discovered. Have you not done with that hand yet? Do not make the bandage too bulky or it will impede my movements. And why bicarbonate of soda, pray? What effect is that supposed to have?’ 

‘It is supposed to neutralise the toxin,’ he replied. ‘Do, my dear fellow, hold still for one more moment. When Jack comes to put Ruby in, I will ensure that an express is sent to town, and we can see what there is to be had on the subject of the honeybee. I had no idea you would be interested in such things, Holmes, no idea at all.’ 

‘Do not forget to ask Jack about beekeepers,’ I reminded him, as he left the room. ‘I should dearly like to see the economy of the hive at work.’ 

‘So should not I.’ He paused in the doorway and shivered. ‘I do not like insects in huge numbers. But I suppose at least they are not wasps, which seem to me to serve no earthly good at all on this earth.’ 

‘We must capture one tomorrow,’ I told him, ‘for I wish to compare the barb of both bee and wasp. I do not understand why one may sting again and again with impunity, while one pays for its first act of aggression with its very life. I am so pleased I was stung, Watson, for had I not been, I would perhaps never have become interested. I wonder how many species of bee and wasp there are? They are of the order coleoptera, are they not?’ 

‘Hymenoptera,’ he corrected me. ‘Their wings are membraneous, not hard sheaths, as in the beetles. Did you pay no attention to biological science at school, my dear fellow? Still, I suppose had you done so I would have to own myself at all points your inferior, instead of which I receive a gratifying sense of superiority when you demonstrate your rare ignorance and I may set you right on some matter or other.’ 

I looked up at him, uncertain, for I was not sure whether he had complimented me or not, but his eyes were merry, and his smile soft and fond, so I was emboldened to tell him that he was by far my superior, that I was grateful not just for his instruction, but also his kindness and support. I did not add – compelled myself to refrain from adding – that I loved him more dearly than ever man was loved, and would happily spend my life with him. I doubted if I would ever be able to tell him that. 

***** 

The following day’s late post brought down a copy of ‘Langstroth On The Honey Bee’, ‘The Beekeeper’s Manual’, by one Henry Taylor, a similarly titled volume by a Polish gentleman named Dobrogost Chylinski which had been rendered inexpertly into English by the author himself and contained more moralistic tales about his countrymen than could be either necessary or useful, and a tattered copy of François Huber’s seminal work ‘Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles’. (The Huber was, in fact the most useful of all of them, for I had no intention of keeping bees, I merely wished to know about them.) 

For the next few days, save for our morning bathe, I barely left the cottage, so engrossed was I in our researches. Watson supplied me with a couple of wasps, and two dead bumble bees which he found upon his solitary promenade one afternoon, and I performed delicate dissections to establish their comparative anatomy. I was, in fact, quite fascinated to discover that the thoracic cavity contained no lungs, but a network of branching tracheae. I told Watson this and he laughed, and said ‘No, do they in truth? Here have I been imagining tiny little pulmonary sacs, just like ours.’ 

I discovered, much to my pain, that my first bee’s demise had been caused by my too-hasty action in brushing it away, and that had I remained calm it would have painstakingly withdrawn its barbed weapon by walking itself around the point of puncture until it had unwound the sting without harm to itself. However when I mentioned it to Watson, he said he did not think he would have the patience to wait for that himself, and he rather wondered that I should, being in pain at the time. 

‘It would, of course, increase the amount of venom in the wound, which is not such a good thing.’ I replaced the cap on my microscope lens, and stretched. ‘But it would save the bee, and that must always be an object with me. They are such honest, humble little creatures, performing a work of great use and profit to mankind. I wonder that they are not more regarded as benefactors. Good heavens, it is growing quite dark: no wonder it was difficult to see my specimens. And I do believe I am starving. What time is it, Watson? And is there anything to eat?’ 

‘Too late to go anywhere to find food.’ he said, ‘so you will have to make do with the stew I have concocted. And then we will sit with a glass of wine. Would you play for me, Holmes, if you have finished your work for the day? You have hardly touched your violin in two weeks; I should love a little music, if you would be kind enough to indulge me. I am quite written out for the day, and shall do no more until tomorrow.’ 

He sounded a little weary, and looking at him, I realised he was wearing that air of indescribable forlornity, which I generally associated with his writing not going well. With a pang of guilt and sorrow, I realised that I had ignored him for nearly four days, so involved had I been in my research, leaving him to fend for both of us, and walk the hills on his own. My mind replayed the wistful hope in his tone as he asked whether I would walk with him, and my own dismissive reply. I recollected with pain the steady kindness which had led to my being presented with sandwiches, cups of tea and plates of ham and eggs, and the surly thanklessness with which I had received them. I recalled occasions on which he had hovered near, watching my work, and I had simply bidden him stand out of my light. Now as he sat there, patient and hopeful, still looking kindly at me, l I felt the hot blood of shame rise in my cheeks. I dropped to my knees beside his chair, and laid a hand on his arm. 

‘Watson,’ I exclaimed, and then hesitated. ‘Watson, I have not been a good companion to you these last few days. I have been selfish and rude, and in truth I have behaved abominably.’ 

His hand covered mine, a quick, light clasp, and then fell away. ‘You are not a creature of moderation, my dear Holmes. When an idea strikes you, you pursue it to the exclusion of all else. I knew how it would be once the books arrived: it is nothing I did not expect. And I am glad to see you amused and happy. I feared lest your melancholy would return in so quiet and secluded a spot, but you have found a new interest to sustain you, have you not?’ 

‘I – I believe I have,’ I said. ‘I had not thought of it like this but, Watson, in these little communities of insects, in these animalcular microcosms of our own society, I believe I might find respite from my cares. There is always something new, something different to observe. And there always will be. Watson, I am so grateful for your patient care of me. You are good beyond expression: what can I give you in return? Say but the word, and anything that is in my power to give shall be yours.’ 

‘Oh, Holmes,’ he said, fondly. And stopped. And then, ‘Let it be your company and your dear music this evening then. My writing is going badly – this wretched chap Alleyne seems a mere puling fainéant, Hordle John a vulgar, lewd fellow of no worth. Even my beautiful Maude is a simpering ninny, with no spirit or fire. I am blue-devilled writing their anaemic love story. Blue-devilled,’ he repeated slowly, ‘since I have,’ and then he stopped, bowed his head, and passed his hand before his eyes. 

I knew what he was not saying, and it hurt. 

‘Since you have none of your own,’ I whispered. ‘I am – I am so sorry, W-Watson, that I have left you lonely this past few days. My friendship is no substitute, I know, since I am too often neglectful and curt with you. But such as it is, it is very truly and sincerely yours.’ 

‘I know it, my good friend, and cherish it dearly.’ He set my hand aside, and rose to his feet. ‘Forgive my maudlin moment, Holmes: it is mere weakness and sentimentality. I have nothing to offer, I, a useless, wounded soldier with no wealth, no prospects other than to trudge on, until my health fails me, and I can do no more.’ 

He moved to the kitchen, and I heard the homely clatter of pots and pans as he moved the stew closer to the heat, and set out the bowls. I made myself tidy the room a little, setting aside my microscope and scouring the table with a piece of waste paper. ‘Where is the cloth,’ I called to him. ‘And the salt cellar?’ 

‘Over the back of the sofa,’ he told me. ‘and the salt by the fire. It was taking the damp: you know it is strongly hygroscopic. Thanks, Holmes, I will be with you shortly. Set out the glasses, my dear chap, I shall drink deep tonight, and forget such melancholy matters. And forgive my silliness. It was only that writing my young, limber hero in all the fine bloom of his manhood, I was struck by the contrast between creator and creation. What once I was . . .”Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cinarae” I am no longer fit for Venus’ wars, but must bid her to spare me, “Parce, precor, precor.” Perhaps I should not read Horace: he speaks so movingly of lost love, of love denied, unrequited, relinquished, given up, that I am melancholy every time I hear him. I should read our manly, vigorous English poets, not some dandified Roman aesthete. Here, take your bowl of this concoction (and god help you, for it is at my limits of culinary expertise) sit with me, and pour the wine to wash it down our protesting gullets.’ 

‘Have you ever been in love,’ I asked, filling him a glass, which he immediately drained. ‘Pardon me, I should not ask you. But I will match you truth for truth, if you choose. And do not underestimate yourself: this is –not – ah, not at all inedible.’ 

‘Oh, my stew is damned with faint praise, I see!’ He laughed, and poured himself a second glass of wine. ‘Done then: a truth for a truth. I have fancied myself in love many a time, Holmes. It is not always beauty that attracts me. Sometimes it is a sweet voice, or a trick of demeanour, or a character trait that appeals, that rouses my empathy, or piques my interest. It is not beauty, that classic, static perfection. I like a wildness, a wantonness if you like: “such sweet neglect more pleaseth me than all the adulteries of art . . .” I like eyes that see clear, and look straight at you – that judge, even, for I would love my equal, not my inferior. And I want a manner free from that affectation which women seem to be taught as a matter of course, god help them: we serve them ill when we do so. And sense, and intelligence: a companion I can walk with, not a strangling ivy. A Dorothea Brooke, not a Rosamond Vincy. And since I am nice in my choice, d’you see, and poor into the bargain, I have never gone further than polite niceties, “no more deep have I indited mine eye” than my own honour has consented to. I will raise no hopes I cannot fulfil, and I will make no compromises, so I fear,’ he emptied his glass and filled it again, ‘I fear I am destined to keep bachelor’s hall to the end of my days. Unlike my hero. But what of you, Holmes? Have you ever loved? What delicate pale nymph, or golden goddess has taken your fancy? I know you have the needs of a man, but how they are directed,’ he hiccupped, ‘how they are directed, I know not.’ 

‘I do not want a delicate pale nymph, or any golden goddess,’ I began, with great caution. ‘Watson, hand me the bottle. You have had three glasses in very short order, and a fourth is too much. You will say what you would not, and in the morning you will have a vile headache, and be cross as crabs into the bargain. Thank you, dear boy, we will drink no more. I, like you, am nice in my choice. If I were ever to choose a partner it would not be for their looks either. I would have someone kind, and tender, and honest. A m-mild temper is m-much to be desired,’ I went on at random, for my treacherous tongue had nearly tripped over the phrase “a man who”. I put the bottle firmly out of reach of both of us. ‘Someone who truly cares for me, a friend, with whom I can walk, and talk, and n-not be afraid when I am sad or melancholy. Someone who sees me for who I am,’ I ended, a little desperately. ‘And now, Watson, I believe we have had enough truth for one evening. We shall set the dishes aside till the morning, and I shall play for you. Make yourself comfortable on the sofa – in fact, go and change, and be comfortable – and I shall tune this sadly neglected instrument and make her sing for you.’ 

‘So you will keep bachelor hall too, it seems,’ he said to me a few moments later, as he settled himself, dressing-gowned and at his ease. 

‘I shall, lifelong, I do believe,’ I replied, ‘for I do not think I will get my wanting in this life or the next. So I shall want what I have got, if I cannot get what I want, Watson.’ 

‘As will I.’ There was a long pause, while I tuned and re-tuned. I was just about to set bow to fiddle when he spoke again, his voice somewhat muffled and unsteady. 

‘I have always thought it must be the loneliest of lives, to keep bachelor’s hall on one’s own, Holmes. Never to be companioned, to be intimate – oh not in the physical sense, but to have a soul’s companion. Do you know, I have,’ his voice roughened further, ‘I have no-one now, to call me by my given name? I shall be doctor, or Dr Watson, or Watson to the end. There never were many, but there are none now.’ 

My eyes filled. I set my violin aside, and went to kneel by the sofa. ‘If I have anything to say to it, we will not keep bachelor’s hall alone but be together as long as you wish it,’ I told him softly, taking his hand. ‘I have no friend as good and true as you, and I want no other – John.’ 

‘Thank you.’ He would not look at me, but his hand clung. In that moment, he was all mine, and my heart exulted, even as I reproached myself for any joy, when he was so sorrowful and so lonely. ‘Thank you, Sherlock.’ 

In the morning he was Watson again, for propriety’s sake, and before the world, and I was Holmes. But I had played him to sleep that night with every love song in my repertoire, and when he had regained command of his countenance he had turned and smiled at me, his eyes fixed on mine until they closed. I had covered him warm as he lay, deep in slumber, and once, with trembling touch, had stroked his hair, whispering ‘Sleep, my dear John.’ We were becoming all in all to each other, matched soul to soul, mind to mind. 

I was content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It transpired that Mycroft was heavily involved in "The Great Game" of spying. Moran is working for the Russian side, and is far more dangerous to Britain's security in India than Moriarty was. Sherlock cannot return until he has neutralised the threat.
> 
> Creighton is from 'Kim', Ram Das from 'A Little Princess'.  
>  
> 
> Mycroft's 'Juventus' and his 'Greek connexion' will be explained in due course: suffice it to say that he is well aware of how his brother feels about Watson, and will keep him safe.  
> Holmes never liked the Norbury case.  
>  
> 
> In the language of flowers, primroses mean 'I can't live without you'. Holmes knows this. Watson doesn't.  
>  
> 
> We will meet Burns-Gibson, Bradlaugh, and the Besants again in Part 7. Holmes and Watson are slightly different social classes: Holmes' father was a squire, patriarchal (not in today's pejorative sense) and caring deeply for those who looked to him. Watson's father was a self-made ironmaster: urban-minded, not rural. Holmes is a dyed-in-the-wool Tory, Watson a left-leaning liberal.  
>  
> 
> The Marquis of Wallsend featured in one of the bawdier poems in 'The Pearl', a pornographic Victorian magazine. Gladstone's efforts to reclaim London's fallen women led to him being regarded as a hypocrite. At one point it was rumoured that he was in fact, Jack the Ripper. In any case it was widely believed that what he was doing with London's prostitutes was a long way from rescuing them.  
>  
> 
> Sadly, Holmes is correct about Labouchère, and Watson is wrong.  
>  
> 
> Watson is not entirely accurate about the snake venom issue. Not all snakes can strike again immediately. Still, he got to hold the chamber pot for Holmes- indoor plumbing would not have featured in a small rural inn - and comfort him after he was sick.  
>  
> 
> All information about the trials after the Phoenix Park murders and the Dynamite Conspiracy, are from the London Evening Standard and the court records of the Old Bailey. Richard Price's conduct, without which the conspiracy might not have come to light, was commended by the Old Bailey judge.  
>  
> 
> All information about nitro-glycerine is correct. I did actually find the recipe. Nobel is Nobel of the Nobel prizes fame, and our friend Dupré is the same Dupré of the Lamson case in Part 4, who was, again, actually involved in the analysis. The explosive had been so badly made that the police got to it just in time. It is extremely difficult to desensitise nitro-glycerine: Holmes and Dupré were lucky they did not precipitate an explosion.  
>  
> 
> Watson was really quite incorrigible over the dynamite. Sugar of lead is lead acetate, a retardant that stops the gunpowder exploding too fast.  
>  
> 
> Watson and Holmes quote from the Roman writer Horace, Odes, Book 3, Ode 1 and Book 4, Ode 1.
> 
> There had to be a first time for Sussex, and also for bees.  
>  
> 
> Alleyne, Hordle John, and Maude are from 'The White Company', a historical novel written by Doyle which he preferred to his Sherlock Holmes stories.  
>  
> 
> The use of first, or as they would have been termed then 'Christian' names, between men was a mark of great and unusual intimacy. Wilde was censured during his trial for using Christian names of his friends, and it was adduced as evidence of his unnatural relationships with them.  
>  
> 
> No stags were harmed in the exploding of Holmes' dynamite!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for taking so long. There was a death in the family.
> 
> TW: Historic child abuse, (described) childbirth, stillborn child. Please always stay safe: message me if you need more detail to make a decision about reading.

Since First I Saw Your Face: Part 7

**The Moti Mahal, Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur. April 1893**

****Holmes peers down through the lattice of the hidden balcony into the room below. Opposite him, sunlight, softened by its passage through stained glass doors, chequers the clothes and faces of the crowd below in ruby, sapphire, topaz and emerald. Jaswant Singh, resplendent on his throne, and attended by his court, is receiving Lord Frederick Roberts, the departing Commander-in-Chief of all British India.** **

******‘The Commander-in-Chief has asked to see you personally, Mr Sigerson,’ murmurs Major Beatson, the officer assigned to accompany Holmes. ‘The reception is nearly at an end: it will not be long now.”** ** **

********Holmes makes a sign of assent, but does not speak. The balconies, built into the Moti Mahal so that Rajah Sur Singh’s queens could listen privately to his council meetings, are not soundproof. His presence is sanctioned, was requested by Pratap Singh, the Maharajah’s brother and advisor, but he does not want to draw attention to himself, for among the guests below is a man who is his enemy. Directly below: he is looking straight down onto Moran’s grizzled pate, his broad shoulders.** ** ** **

********‘Colonel Moran thinks he has Sir Pratap’s ear,’ says Beatson, too loudly, and Holmes curses him internally for the naïve and noisy enthusiast that he is. He has never liked hearty sporting types. ‘But thanks to you, Sigerson, we are aware of him. Once Lord Roberts has received your report, we can move against him.’** ** ** **

********A change in the level of noise below signals that the reception is about to end. Beatson slips away – silently, thank God, thinks Holmes – and Holmes tenses, watches. There can be no assassination attempt in so public a place, that he knows: it is not thus Moran works, but in secret, from afar, and he is here to spy out the land, not to kill. But Holmes’ nerves are on edge none the less, for Moran’s target is the Maharajah himself. Jaswant Singh’s strong loyalty to the Empire is a threat to the Russian desire to destabilise British India. Under Sir Pratap, the Imperial Service Troops of Jodhpur are the best organised and equipped group of the Sepoy Army. To deprive them of leadership, and the Viceroy, Lansdowne, of an ally of such importance would be a feat indeed – and it is a feat that Holmes must prevent at all costs. And his interest in seeing Moran’s downfall is personal, as well as political. The information he shared with Creighton at Umballa included a list of Moran’s assassination targets, one of whom is Jaswant Singh, another of whom is Mycroft. He himself is merely an incidental annoyance, a piece of grit in the sensitive instrument of espionage, a fly to be swatted casually, in passing.** ** ** **

********Immersed in his thoughts, Holmes has lost sight of his quarry. He rakes the crowd below with his eyes, but Moran has left. Beatson, however is only too much in evidence; his laugh rings loud and clear as he claps Sir Pratap Singh on the shoulder, ‘ . . . we’ll go and see that little mare tomorrow, she sounds just the thing!’ he says, and Holmes rolls his eyes. Can the wretched man think of nothing but polo? Footsteps, stealthy, quiet, sound on the stair, and he darts behind the silken curtain separating one balcony from another, cursing. Who is it that Beatson has allowed into this hidden sanctuary? Holmes holds his breath.** ** ** **

********The intruder, his soft footfall perceptible more as a vibration than a sound, pushes the door open and advances. The scent of strong tobacco tells Holmes the stalker is a male; his tread, measured and careful, that he is on the track of game. The man moves to the patterned and gilded wooden screen, pierced by openings that allow the occupant of the balcony to observe, but remain themselves unseen, and as he passes the screened opening to the second balcony, Holmes sees that it is Moran. He freezes, hardly daring to breathe, for he is unarmed, and Moran carries knives; moreover he is weary and spent with a fever that has been on him since Umballa. Only Beatson knows he is there: it would be easy for Moran to knife him and slip away. He retreats, noiseless, behind the curtained door into the third balcony.** ** ** **

********Below the balconies there is a flurry of movement, laughter, broken snatches of conversation, then more steps on the stairs. Holmes presses himself further back into the room. There is nothing to hide behind, save the curtain separating the third balcony from the fourth. A rustle of silk alerts him just in time to retreat, and as he conceals himself again, he sees Moran, his eyes fixed on the men entering the first balcony, dart backwards into the second and then the third. Holmes draws breath, bites his lip: if it were not so deadly, this game of hide and seek would make him smile. Moran utters a sotto-voce curse, slips eel-like into the corridor leading to the stairs, and is gone, his hurried steps masked by the conversation now taking place in the first balcony. Holmes breathes a sigh of relief, but it is tempered by regret at his lost opportunity. Moran has escaped him once more.** ** ** **

********‘I left him here, where has the man got to?’ It is Beatson, his voice carrying. Holmes stalks, scowling, out of his hiding place, swishes the curtains aside and is about, in his irritation, to confront Beatson in propria persona as Holmes, when he recollects himself. He rounds his shoulders, taking a couple of inches off his height, re-settles his glasses a little further down his nose so he can peer over them in a pretence of scholarly amiability, and ambles gently into the first balcony. His voice, when he speaks, has Sigerson’s Nordic intonations, the merest hint of an accent to imply that, although he speaks it fluently, English is not his first language.** ** ** **

********‘Your security is most careless,’ he reproves Beatson, before turning to the other person in the room. ‘Moran was where you now stand but a moment ago: observing the court below. He certainly knows the secret of these balconies, and there is no doubt in my mind that if an assassination attempt comes, it could come from here. When you, my Lord, and Major Beatson here entered so loudly, he slipped down the stairs and was gone. I avoided him myself only by a rapid and silent retreat: and he is armed, I unarmed. He could not have entered this area without assistance. Beatson, you must look to the Maharajah’s household, to see if there be any who hold a grudge and would betray him for gain.’ He looks at the man he has addressed as ‘my Lord’, a small, slight man with greyed hair and keen eyes. ‘Forgive me, Lord Roberts, but this breach of security is serious. I am here to prevent an assassination only to find the assassin with the entry to the very place from which he should most rigorously be excluded.’** ** ** **

********General Lord Frederick Roberts, GCIE, recently ennobled to the newly created Barony of Kandahar and Waterford, inclines his head, one hand stroking his Dundreary whiskers. Holmes is conscious of being scrutinised by a gaze as keen and searching as his own. Roberts smiles, after a while, observing the way Holmes neither flinches from his gaze nor stares back at him, but bears it all patiently.** ** ** **

********‘So Mr ‘Sigerson’ – I take it that is not your real name – let us get down to business. You have intelligence, and I have need of it. Tell me more about Colonel Sebastian Moran. Beatson, my good fellow, if we are to conduct our business here, then chairs, rather than a cushioned divan would be my preference, and I am sure Mr Sigerson and I would welcome a drink. And I take your point, Sigerson, about enemies in the camp: Moran should not have known about these rooms, much less been able to enter them. Post guards on the stairways, Beatson, if you please, and in the room below – guards for whose loyalty you can personally vouch. We do not wish to be the bleating kid and attract the tiger to us quite yet, not until our trap for him is set, that he may spring it to his ruin.’** ** ** **

********‘Thank you my Lord,’ replies Holmes, as Beatson, somewhat chastened, leaves the room. ‘My Lord, before we begin, may I take this opportunity to commend you for your victory at Kandahar. I have a close friend who was grievously wounded fighting Ayyub Khan at Maiwand, and then invalided out of the service. I thank you for avenging him.’** ** ** **

********‘His name? I might have met him?’ and as Holmes shakes his head, mute, ‘No, in your line of work, you cannot tell me, of course. Well, I commiserate with your friend. That was a bad business.’ Lord Roberts’ eyes are distant. ‘A very bad business, Maiwand. I visited the hospitals afterwards, after that defeat. There were terrible sights, not only the men wounded, but those dying of an enteric fever that swept the camps and hospitals, carrying off many who might otherwise have recovered. Poor lads, poor young lads. I have always striven to care for the common soldier. They lay their lives down freely in the service of their country, for so little reward.’** ** ** **

********‘All India knows that Bobs Bahadur cares well for his troops, my Lord,’ says Holmes. He bows, with a little flourish, as a European, rather than an Englishman might. ‘I am grateful for my friend’s life.’** ** ** **

********‘You make too much of very little,’ is the gruff reply. ‘To business, Sigerson. Give me your intelligence about this renegade Moran. It seems we have come too near to disaster already. I must despatch all this business haste, haste, post-haste, before my sojourn here ends, and I go back to England. My term of office is nearly over, but perhaps it is as well: I can do more back there to persuade the government of the Russian menace. I must speak to H1, for he is a man of sense, and will support me; moreover he has Gladstone’s ear, as he had Disraeli’s not so long ago.’********

************* ** **

********Later that night, Holmes sits on his charpoy. In his hand are two folded papers that have been passed to him under seal that day from the diplomatic bag. Mycroft’s coded note is blunt and to the point.** ** ** **

********_I have had to restrain him from writing about your ‘noble death’, he writes, lest he expose our business with Moriarty (whose brother, it has to be said, is offering provocation that could be termed extreme) and Moran. Here enclosed is a draft that, under some strong persuasion, he agreed to give to me ‘for safekeeping’. I could not on any account allow it to be published, of course. Let alone that towards the end it does, in part, disclose our business, it is dangerous to both of you. If the reading public balked at Tennyson grieving for his Hallam, or found Disraeli’s heroes curiously feminine, how much more would these elevated sentiments expose his feelings for you, feelings of which, like you, I believed him to be unaware. I could not let it go to the printer without revision, and beg you will destroy it, once read: do not on any account bring it back to England. Society’s opinion is hardening against Greek affections, for Labouchère’s amendment has done the work he designed it to do. And Labouchère has never forgiven you, brother._** ******

******_In material terms, Watson is in a better situation. I have arranged an unexpected ‘legacy’ from a distant cousin from his mother’s side, so he is no longer in poverty, and now his wife, who is nearing her end, is living in comfort – even luxury. I have persuaded Lestrade to give him work, but there is little else I can do, and Lestrade can do little enough. Watson is near insane with grieving, Sherlock. I fear for him. Use dispatch about our business, I pray you._ ** ** **

************And on the other paper, its ink blotted and smeared, in Watson’s neat, pointed hand:** ** ** ** ** **

**_It_** is ** _with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these, the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts and the unparalleled powers of my dearest friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes. It was my intention, after laying before the public the facts recounted in ‘The Naval Treaty, to say nought of that event which created a void in my life which the lapse of two years has done nothing to fill. Yes, I will admit it. My very existence is as nothing without him, for what is life but a deadly, lonely thing when a man has, as I have, lost the companion of his soul?_**

**_I sit here in the moonlight, writing of my friend (my task to right him in the eyes of the world; to lift from him those foul slanders that have tainted his name) and with every word inscribed I am conscious of a terrible craving for that sympathy and fellowship which once I rejoiced in. Nay, let me be honest. It was more than fellowship. We progressed through those gradual shades of advance from fellowship to friendship to intimacy, to an intimacy deeper than I have ever known, to something more sacred still, something which can scarcely be written, far less spoken of to another. It was more than mere brotherly affection. Ours was the bond that united David and Jonathan, and with David I mourn, saying ‘How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle: my Jonathan, thou wast slain in the high places. I grieve for thee, my Jonathan, very pleasant hast thou been unto me, thy love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women.'_ **

**_I grieve. To live, to work with Sherlock Holmes, to be with him, the sharer of his joys and sorrows, his triumphs and failures, was everything to me. When he was present, and kind, I spent the day as a God: in his absence, or even in his reproof, all days were dark to me. His affection, his friendship, should have been my all: it should have been enough for me, yet I proved unworthy at the last. Dear as he was to me, I rejected him, when I should have clasped him closer to my breast. I left him, when I should have cleaved to him. And at Reichenbach I lost him, or he lost me, when I should have refused to lose or be lost. I, who swore to him ‘comme un frère je veux te cherir’, who offered him Nadir’s promise, ‘oui, partageons le même sort, soyons unis jusqu’à la morte,’ I allowed myself to be tricked - and thus my Zurga died alone, crushed, along with his mortal enemy, by the dreadful waters. Even now, it seems to me that I hear him call me from those pitiless depths. Would to God that I had died for him . . . or if not for him, with him._ **

********There is more to Watson’s draft, but Holmes dare not read it. He remembers too vividly the April night, six years ago now, when they had watched Bizet’s opera Leila: the turmoil in his breast, the tears he had barely restrained as the tenor, Nadir, sung by Garulli, swore eternal friendship unto death to Lhèrie’s tragic Zurga. He remembers how he had turned away during the applause to conceal his unruly emotions, how outside the theatre, as they walked home, Watson, aglow with excitement, had impulsively, passionately, repeated to him the words of the duet, vowing that they would never part, but be together ‘jusqu’à la morte’. He feels again the horror with which he, catching sight of the bullet-headed figure of Labouchère, suave and smiling nearby as he watched Watson, had understood what danger they were in. That realisation, the strain on emotions already wrung by his two-month absence from Watson for the Maupertuis case, had completely prostrated him.** ** ** **

************And yet, in the depths of his present exhaustion, his fever, and the weariness of his life as a spy, he feels a faint glimmer of hope. These words of Watson’s are dear to him. If he can succeed, if he can return, perhaps, after all, he may be happy. Not with the fullness of happiness, for that, he thinks, is too much to ask. But if Watson will forgive him, then his presence – his companionship, friendship, affection – these may again be Holmes’s to treasure.********

*****

My Heart Is Fast.

We had separated the pages of our daily paper, as was our wont, and were reading quietly together after breakfast. Our Sussex sojourn lay a week behind us, and I for one, although sorry to lose our cherished solitude, was eager to take up the reins of work again. My melancholia had dissipated – how could it not? – under Watson’s care, and my health was better than it had been for some time. I poured more coffee into my friend’s cup, and tapped gently at the sheet he held before his face.

‘There is an article here about Afghanistan, which I will exchange for the page you are conning so closely,’ I informed him, as he took up his cup with a nod of thanks. ‘I wish to see the agony column, in case there is anything of interest – no? Ah well, but in any case, my dear fellow, it would be safer if you were not to peruse the racing information on the back of that sheet with quite so much attention. And may I remind you that your cheque book reposes in my desk, and the key is upon my person? You cannot afford to lose more this month, you know. For a man who is such a good judge of health, I cannot think how it is that your doctor’s instinct fails you in the equine department: you back the sorriest screws in the race and then mourn bitterly when they fall over and die.’

‘I own your impeachment,’ he replied, smiling at me. His eyes were very blue this morning. He had slathered – there was no other word for it – honey on his breakfast toast, and a golden drop still kissed the left-hand corner of his lip. ‘I have learned my lesson, Holmes, I assure you, and am duly penitent. Hand over your page then, and I will let you have mine. Do you choose to go out this evening, my dear chap? There is Iolanthe, at the Savoy, which we have been too busy to see. I know it is not entirely to your taste, but Sullivan’s music is very fine. I confess I am in the mood for some light entertainment. Here, take your sheet. And tell me how your bee studies go on: I have not heard you mention them for a few days now.'

‘They do not pall, but increase in interest.’ I took the paper. ‘When I experiment on my own account, I shall use Langstroth’s method of hiving them, but that will not be for a while. Watson, if a bee were to enter at this moment, it would find you a welcome source of food.’ I indicated my own lip. ‘You have acquired a stray drop of honey: an overabundance was on your toast, I think.’

‘Forgive me,’ Unselfconscious as a child, he wiped his finger over the offending substance, and licked it. ‘There, is that better?’

‘Much,’ I said, my throat unaccountably dry all of a sudden. ‘Yes, I will attend the Savoy with you. We have nothing else to do, it seems.’

‘Are you bored?’ His eyes were anxious. ‘I am sure Lestrade will have something for us shortly: pray do not despair yet, Holmes. And in any case, since you have the time, I wondered if you might choose to attend a dinner with me later in the week. I am to dine with Burns-Gibson, and a group of other fellows – not all of them medical, but some like-minded men who share my views on politics. You did mention that you wished to join me, did you not?'

‘I did.’ I endeavoured to keep my tone light. Our summer work, my melancholia, and our holiday had prevented him from pursuing his radical acquaintances, but if he were to take them up again, I would certainly go with him. I nodded toward the paper. ‘Do read that article on Afghanistan for me, old man, and let me know your opinion: I am interested in what you, as a military man, think. And by the by, it appears there has been an interesting volcanic eruption in the Sunda Strait: there is a report there, after your Afghan one. Apparently some mountain or island named Krakatoa has summarily blown itself to pieces with resounding fury and immense clouds of ash. I have often read Pliny’s account of the celebrated Vesuvian event that killed his uncle, and wished I could have seen it, and now here is another cataclysm that we have missed. Why do such things not happen here, I wonder? I have never heard of one in England.’

‘I would not wish it. And if it did occur, you would be just such an one as the elder Pliny, Holmes. You would be making notes even as the ash cloud rushed to overwhelm you, and since I doubt I would be able to sling you over my shoulder and run away with you, we should perish ignominiously together. I do not know why we do not have them here. They happen only in certain places, it seems, where there is an upwelling of the Earth’s molten blood. Is her skin thinner there? I know little of geology save the few facts I have gleaned from Lyell, Wallace, Owen and Miller. Perhaps when you indulge yourself in your Hymenoptera, I shall study Mistress Earth and her ways.’

I murmured an assent. After a few moments’ silence, he looked up at me from his paper. ‘Oh, this is a bad business, Holmes. Lytton mishandled the entire conduct of my conflict during his tenure as Viceroy. If it were not for little Bobs’ victory at Kandahar, after our defeat at Maiwand, we should never have expelled Ayyub Khan and restored Abdur Raman. And although as Lytton’s successor, Ripon has commanded the respect of the native Indians to a certain extent, he is too greatly impeded by Gladstone’s directives to advance their rights as he wishes so of course there is disaffection. Of course, also, Russia meddles in Afghanistan to the top of her bent. It is not just that the Bear covets India’s riches, it is that the Tsar sorely wants a warm water port. From India, he can sail the world’s oceans, unhindered by northern ice. And in my opinion, Abdur Raman Khan cannot be trusted. He aligned himself with the Russians when he was in exile, and now has thrown in his lot with the British for gain. He will switch again just as easily, and who can blame him? We will never secure Afghanistan. It is a tribal society, riven by old loyalties, ancient betrayals, and feuds that date back beyond our presence there. We cannot understand it, and indeed we have no place there.’ He rose, setting back his chair. ‘I must away to Barts, Holmes. I shall return in time to change for our outing. And do you think we can stretch to a little supper after the performance? My last story sold well: I have a little money to spare, despite my mishaps on the racetrack. I should like to take you out, old man, to celebrate our happy return to London, and your restoration to health – and mine too, I suppose.’

‘Of course,’ I rose too. ‘Thank you for the thought; that would be delightful. You are in a particularly good humour this morning, Watson, yet I cannot deduce a particular cause. Do you care to enlighten me?’

‘Oh,’ he said, and smiled. ‘I enjoyed our holiday. I have not felt so rested, nor slept so well in months. I am so very happy too, my dear fellow, to see you so well and serene. It is a great thing for me, you know, to know that I have been of use to you in that way. By the way, I shall be passing our tobacconists, so do not trouble to replenish your store today, for I shall do it. And do not use all the hot water in the house, I beg you, for I shall need to bathe before we go.'

‘Oh, these domestic details,’ I teased him. My heart was swelling with a feeling I could not describe: pleasure at his content, his happiness, was there, but pain too, that I could not caress him, hold him to me, kiss his brow, his cheek . . . his honeyed mouth . . . before he left. ‘These little domestic details . . .’

*****

Later that evening, having taken a cab part way there, we walked to the Savoy Theatre, its new electrical lights a coruscating brilliance in the misty air. Watson, as I had not hesitated to tell him, was fine as fivepence in a smoothly brushed top hat, and a new summer suit. His cravat was deep blue, and seeing he had no pin for it, I had lent him one of mine, a diamond, discreet, small, but of the finest water. His eyes were bright with excitement, and his stride military: a month’s swimming, stretching, and walking in the summer warmth had put muscle on him and almost done away with his limp. He was beautiful – and, alas, I was not the only one who saw it, for we were not able to be alone, as I had wished. All London, it seemed, had elected to visit the Savoy that night. Among them were several of Watson’s acquaintance, although (despite a momentary pang of suspicion) I acquitted him of collusion as soon as I saw the comic look of resigned despair he turned on me when Burns-Gibson bustled up to him in the foyer, several people trailing after him.

‘Watson!’ exclaimed that worthy. ‘And Holmes! What a pleasant surprise! I had no idea you were attending tonight. My dear sir, I wonder if you would be kind enough to allow me to introduce my friends to you . . .’

They were earnest, I decided, mechanically going through those despised forms of introduction within which men jockey for position and assess each other as rivals. More than anything else, they were earnest. Burns-Gibson I could barely look at without embarrassment, since to me he must always be an unpleasant reminder of my weakness: no man should be forced to look in the eye one to whom he has confessed his most intimate physical secrets unless that man be his lover, the gaze be in intimate association, and the intimacy accompanied by the tenderest professions of love and esteem, To do him justice though, Burns-Gibson was a doctor through and through: he never gave a hint of our one-time professional association, but treated me with the gravest dignity and respect throughout. As for the two most noteworthy of the others, Percival Chubb, and Havelock Ellis, they were younger than Watson by six or seven years, than me by four or five, and still retained much of the callow enthusiasm of youth.

Ellis was a medical student at St Thomas’s – thank God he was not at Barts - and hung on Watson’s every word with flattering attention: he was a fine-featured, handsome young man, with strong brows, a prominent nose, and a dark, bushy beard. Although younger, he had this in common with Watson, that both had travelled – he in Australia, that barren, cultureless wilderness – and during the interval of Gilbert and Sullivan’s faerie fantasia, as we mingled together in the bar (for their seats were, fortunately, at some remove from ours, so at least I had my Watson to myself during the operetta) they swapped travel tales and stories of risks taken and dangers overcome. Listening to them, I found myself sadly aware that I had nothing comparable in my own life, and wondered if it made me an unfit companion for a man of Watson’s experience. Chubb, a round-headed youngster with a narrow chin, smiling mouth and extraordinarily wide-set eyes, was a civil service clerk. A dedicated auto-didact, he informed me in detail of his visits to the gymnasium to ensure a healthy body, and of his evening attendance at Birkbeck, a working men’s college, to study Greek and German, that he might read Plato and Kant in the original and thus ensure a healthy mind. I diverted his attention from Watson, whom he was regarding with a too-fascinated gaze, by some slight philosophical comments – I myself found Kant an engrossing study – and discovered him to have interesting ideas, with some originality of thought.

Had I not been so irritated by the pair’s fawning adulation of Watson, and Burns-Gibson’s sententious pronouncement on politics and public health, I might have taken some interest in my conversation with Chubb. As it was, I was quick to shepherd Watson back to our seats when the bell rang, feigning a strong desire not to miss one syllable of our airy entertainment. By the end of the piece, my black mood was descending, the lights were an acute agony, and Sullivan’s sweetest notes a torment. All I wanted was the peace and quiet of our own sanctum in Baker Street. I said nothing to Watson, for we had agreed to go out to supper together, and I wanted his company – and only his company – but after observing me narrowly for some minutes, when the clapping had died down, and we were waiting to leave our seats, he asked me in low tones if I had the headache.

‘A little. It is no matter. I am hungry, I daresay, and will be better when we have eaten. I had no luncheon, now I recall.’

‘We might join Burns-Gibson, Chubb and Ellis and their party – they have invited us – but I think we had better not. Another time perhaps, for they are interesting men, and I would like you to get to know them better. They have been contemplating the formation of a new political society, one that will support the rights of the working man, and provide better rights, and care and living for women and children, and I am sure you would be in agreement with their thoughts and ideals did you but know them. Let us give them the go-by for tonight then – it was a slight enough invitation: no shame to us if we follow our previous plans – and retire to Simpson’s. It was my intention to offer you dinner, after all. You had better not have their beef tonight, my dear fellow, it may sit too heavily on your stomach after a day’s fasting, but I am sure a plainly grilled sole, and a glass of a light hock will suit you.’

‘I hate hock,’ I commented, as I made my way behind him to the doors, and without seeing his face, I could imagine the fond, but exasperated expression with which he replied ‘Chablis then, if it suits you better.'

He had the beef at Simpson’s of course. As I picked at my Dover sole – there was nothing wrong with it, but my appetite was small - I considered broaching a subject I had long wanted to raise. Watson had told me virtually nothing about his childhood, but it was more what he had not said that led me to believe it had not been happy. I had felt for some time that the reason for his interest in social questions, particularly those relating to the welfare of children, and his urge to involve himself, lay therein.

‘You are in a contemplative mood tonight,’ he observed, before I had had time to formulate my enquiry. ‘Or is it just the headache? Try to eat at least two of those little fillets, my dear fellow. You are not on a case, and so need not deprive yourself. I do not wish to press you to converse, Holmes, but I am interested in your opinion of the men we met tonight. What did you think of them?’

‘They are idealists,’ I replied. I took a bite of fish, which at least served to give me time to reply. ‘Ellis is an interesting man. There is more about him than at first appears, and I predict a future which will bring him to men’s notice. Chubb is an idealist – an white-hot enthusiast for his cause. Only time will tell whether he retains those enthusiasms, and they carry his ideals into reality, or whether he cools to mediocrity and becomes a civic functionary with a soul as dry as his files. Even with closer knowledge, I would never call either of them friend, if that is your question. I do not count many men among my friends, as you know. In fact, it is you only who may lay sole claim to that rather dubious distinction.’

He beamed at me, bright and warm. ‘It is a singular honour to be your friend, Holmes, and even more so to be your only friend. I could ask for nothing more, you know, than to be your companion and associate. And our friendship is on quite a different footing, of course, from my acquaintance with these men. With them, it is that I believe we share a common cause, so I will associate myself with them in a friendly way, as is right, and as I do with my colleagues at work.’

I reflected, as I finished my fish in silence, that this was the essential difference between us. I had never been a clubbable man, fond of casual society. Watson, by reason of his careers both in medicine and in the army, had been forced into sociability, and found, with his easy temperament, that he did not object to it. In the first two years of our acquaintance, he had been both too sick, and too poor to indulge in society to any great extent: I had, perforce, been his only companion for most of that time. Now, restored to better, although still somewhat precarious, health, and with security of work and money, he would naturally be able to be more gregarious, with a wider circle of acquaintance. This possibility had not occurred to me before, and the prospect was unwelcome, especially after our halcyon interval in Sussex, where we had been all in all to each other. If he became more involved in the world’s affairs, he would have less time for me, and we would grow apart.

I had not realised how long I had been silent, until I woke from my reverie, and found him patiently sitting waiting for my reply. He was observing me gravely, only the hint of a smile on his lips. ‘Are you still there, Holmes?’

‘Forgive me,’ I placed my knife and fork on my plate. I really could not eat any more. ‘I was lost in contemplation: it is shameful of me to insist on your company alone, come here with you and then ignore you. It is only – I find myself asking why, Watson? I do not wish to trespass upon your reserve,’ I added hastily, as he raised a quizzical eyebrow, ‘it is only that I question why you are so involved in these social issues. Oh, your desire to be so involved is admirable, do not think I doubt it,’ for both eyebrows were raised at me now, with that authoritative hauteur that Captain Watson could assume at will. ‘Do not look askance at me: you know it is my habit to enquire into men’s motivations. I shall not press the matter if it offends you, my dear friend. You must know I would never force your hand.’

‘I am not looking askance,’ and now his brow had smoothed again. ‘I do have reason, Holmes, perhaps more reason than most. But it is not a subject for a public place. If you are ready, we shall walk home, and I will tell you what little there is to be told over a brandy, in the quiet of our own home.’

‘I will not insist upon your confidence,’ I assured him. ‘If there is nothing you wish to tell me, I will not question you further.’

‘I do wish to tell you,’ he said, slowly. ‘I have thought for a long time I should like to tell someone. I have no yardstick for it, you see, to measure my experience in men’s eyes. I do not know if I dwell too much upon it, or should be more angry than I am. Certainly, I have never mentioned my childhood to anyone before.’

‘Then let us go home. The rain will be setting in soon, and if there was ever a time for confidences it is a rainy evening. If there are to be tears within, at least there will be tears without to balance them.’

‘You have a poet’s trick with words, my dear fellow.'

‘I prefer to think of it as a liking for pattern and congruence,’ I told him. ‘It seems to me that the weather often matches my mood - or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the mood matches the weather. Come, Watson, are we ready?’

We were quiet together as we went home, my arm, as always, in his. I fancied, in my love-sickness, that he inclined a little more towards me than usual, that he was at pains to shelter me from the bustling crowds. I thought the silence a comfortable one. Yet when we were finally settled, each in our own armchairs, he seemed strained, and weary, and did not speak. I watched as he drained his brandy and soda in silence, and jumped up to pour again for him. He did not drink, but rose, and moved restlessly around the room, finally returning to the fireplace, where he stood, his back to me, and gave a deep sigh.

I thought to myself then, that I must treat him as a client, although with infinitely more tenderness and care, for I had seen many thus, burdened with news of import, and unable to begin, silenced by the feelings they could not express.

‘Shall I attempt . . .’ I began, exactly as he said, his tone roughened by emotion, ‘Holmes, do you think you could . . .?’

‘What can I do?’ I asked him, but he waved at me, and said ‘No, Holmes, go on.’

‘I was only going to ask if it would help you to begin if I were to attempt to deduce you, as I have done with my clients,’ I almost felt I should apologise for the thought. ‘But of course, my dear Watson, I will not, if you do not wish it.’

‘I do wish it. I beg you, Holmes, help me to heave this off my heart. I feel I can confide in you, in no-one better, but it is so damned hard to start. Men do not talk of such things, after all.’

‘Very well then,’ I went to him, and tried to coax him back to his chair. ‘But sit down, my dear, at least. Let us be comfortable, my dear Watson, come, sit with me.'

‘I shall sit on the hearthrug, and be damned to my sore knees and back tomorrow,’ he said, resisting my attempts and dropping to the rug at my feet, where he sat half turned from me, so I could not see his face. ‘Here, move your chair closer to the fire, and I can lean against it and be warm. I am so cold, this evening. That is better. Go on then, do your worst. Or your best, whichever it is to be. What can you deduce – what have you deduced already - about my childhood?'

‘Well,’ I said, resisting the urge to touch the head that now rested close to my knee, ‘I know from your accent that you come from the North country, and from your army service that you hail from Northumberland, but I do not know whether you were born there. You spent your childhood there, though not all your young adulthood, for your adult vocabulary contains words that have no northern accent at all, and I therefore deduce that you went away to school. I know from the occasional things that you have said, that your family was wealthy enough to have a nanny - therefore you lived amid plenty. She was strict, because you have mentioned her whipping you for breaking a saucer, and she rarely allowed you things that you wanted, for you over-indulge now, when you can. But you regret your indulgences afterwards, therefore your upbringing was austere: a Protestant family then, not one of the old Catholic families of the north, who retained the old faith despite all persecution. There is a soupçon of a Catholic’s cavalier attitude toward religion about you, though, so possibly, like mine, your family is split. I know you had an older brother because of your watch, the provenance of which I deduced some time ago, along with your brother’s habits: now since he was hasty and intemperate, while you are merely (although in truth there is no ‘merely’ about it) courageous, brave to the point of recklessness, and a little too fond of gambling, I would say that there is a family history of such behaviour, stronger in some than in others. Whether you have, or have had other siblings, I know not, although I am inclined, from what I have observed of your behaviour to children, to deduce that you had a sister . . .’

‘I had a little sister. She died. Pray continue, Holmes: your ability amazes me.’

I could not see his face: he had twisted to keep it hidden, and his body was tense. He was not quite leaning against my knee, but against the chair, or I would have been able to deduce his agitation more accurately through touch. Even as I thought this, he jumped up, and moved again to stand looking into the fire.

I went on, more cautiously now. ‘Your brother took to drink, as we discussed. He would not have done so had he been happy; therefore he was not happy. Perhaps he disappointed as a son, or was disappointed. Often sons and fathers – there can be problems. He did not go into the army like you, but into business, and he struggled to succeed. You, on the contrary, went into the army. Your father was an army man, in a Northern regiment?’

‘He reached the rank of Colonel in my own regiment, the Fifth Northumberland. He himself was at odds with his father, my grandfather, an ironmaster from Bradford, who had wanted him to take over the business. But my father joined the army, with his mother’s, and an uncle’s support. You are right about religion. My father, and his, were Protestants – Dissenters, not our established church. My mother was a Catholic. She was Irish, from a good, though poor, family, which disowned her for marrying a Protestant. I never knew her family, nor those grandparents. My brother went back to my grandfather’s manufactory for a time, but he could never make a go of anything after my mother died. He was her darling, more than either me, or my sister. He had my father’s blond hair and brown eyes. He was a handsome boy, was Harry, until he ruined his looks and liver with laudanum and drink.’

‘So your father was a family rebel in his own right, but a career soldier. And your mother was Irish. You have her eyes, of course, the true, deep Irish blue, but your father’s colouring. And her stature? I thought so.’ I paused then, for I was uncertain of what I had to say next: reasoning dictated that it should be so, for all the signs were there, but to put it to the proof was quite another thing. ‘Their marriage was happy at first: a love match, despite her family’s disapproval. There was a disparity of age, perhaps, as well as status and religion? And their dates of birth?’

‘He was born in the year of Waterloo. Thirteen years lay between them. I do not know how you do it, but you are damnably accurate, Holmes. My mother was only seventeen when my brother was born in ’45. And yes, I believe they were happy then. There were seven years between us: by the time I was born, I believe she was less so. My father was away often and my mother was lonely. The marriage was disapproved of on both sides, you see. I was born in ’52, my sister in ’57. She was different . . . delicate. A strange little girl, often frightened. Her name was Mary, but we always called her Minnie. Things became even less happy after she was born, but not because of her. It was the war – the Crimean War. My father had changed before I was born, but he changed more after the war. It was – well, I have had the evil dreams, of course, and the melancholia, but he had had a head injury, and he was never quite the same. He had always been a quick tempered man, gentle to my mother, but hard-handed to us boys, demanding excellence, and swift to mend our manners or our morals with a stick – oh, I was beaten many times, although not so much as my brother – but he became brutal. And then he became brutal to her. And also to Minnie. She had a trick of singing to herself, an odd, low little croon, not unpleasant, indeed quite tuneful, but incessant, and it drove him wild: he could not support the noise, or any noise, for that matter. My mother protected her as best she could. Sometimes, indeed, I saw her take blows for the child. I did myself, for both of them, but I could not, always.’

He came to me, knelt beside me, and bared his left arm to the elbow. ‘It looks strong enough, does it not? But if you were to examine the bone, you would soon feel a bump in it. He broke my arm, and it set just a little crooked. There were other incidents: I have the scars. He was violent when he was in his fits: we tried, all of us, to get away, but he would hunt us down. I was twelve when that happened – my arm. My brother struck him for it, and received the beating of his life: I thought my father would never stop, with my mother sobbing pitifully, and imploring him to be kind, that we loved him, he was not to hurt us. It was soon after that that Harry left us, swearing he would never see our father again.’

‘But she died, your mother.’ I spoke softly, for it was now no more my task to deduce, but his to confide. ‘How old were you then?'

‘She died in ’67. I was fifteen, and away at school, where she had sent me to get me out of the way: my brother was twenty-two. He had been estranged from my father for three years: he lived with our grandparents in Bradford. My sister was not at home then either, for she had been sent to live with friends nearby who ran a little dame school. She was happy enough. She could not write to me; even at ten she had not learned her letters, but she sent me drawings.’ He paused, looked at me briefly, then stood, and turned away to the mantelpiece again, his shoulders stiff.

‘I was summoned home for my mother’s funeral – her death was a shock to all of us, for although she had been low, and ailing for some time, all her pretty colour gone and her eyes big and sad, we had not thought there to be anything seriously wrong with her. She had fallen downstairs and broken her neck straightway, no help for it, it was said, and it is true that in her coffin, in the shadow, one side of her face was dark and bruised. The coroner brought it in accidental death, and the whole of the town commiserated with the gallant Colonel, widowed of his lovely young wife, with two bairns to bring up, and his eldest son already going to the bad.’

‘Oh, my dear Watson. Oh, my dear fellow, I am so very sorry.'

He flicked me the briefest of glances, his eyes very bright. ‘It is a not uncommon tale, Holmes. Spousal abuse, the beating of children. He was drinking hard, of course. And a man’s right is absolute, you know: a woman may not say him nay. Children have no rights at all it seems. Have you heard enough of my sorry tale to understand why I must defend the weak? Why I must make up for what I could not do then? I did not save her: I was not there. She had sent me away, sent Minnie away, for our safety, and she died for it. I never knew the true story: perhaps he pushed her, perhaps her feet tangled in her skirts as she ran from him and she did indeed fall. Perhaps he struck her hard enough to cause her death, I do not know. All I know is that I was not there. I failed her. And her death ruined my brother: he held himself responsible too. He was twenty–two when she died, and he cried like a child at her funeral, cursing my father, to the scandal of all who stood by. Within a year, he had destroyed himself with drink and laudanum, as I told you. Then my father turned away most of the servants, save for an old woman who came in to do the most rudimentary cooking, and her surly other half to ruin the garden and our poor horses together. He haled Minnie and me home from school, first Minnie, straight after the funeral, then, at the close of my sixteenth year, me. I wanted to go up to one of the medical schools, to become a doctor, but he would have none of it: I was to follow him into the army, learn what it was to be a man, and make up for my weakling of a brother. He tutored and drilled me himself, with many a blow, and hard words, to toughen me. I could do nothing right for him. He was quite – insane, I think.’

He was silent, staring into the fire. I did not dare to interrupt him. I knew there was more, that there must be more, but I did not know what to say. I suspected, as I had suspected with Roylott’s stepdaughter, what that more was, but I did not want to give voice to my suspicions. He was near the end of his tale, that I knew, and the end of his strength for telling it also. And I was frozen in my indecision. I wanted to hold him, to embrace him, give him comfort and my strength, pillow his head on my shoulder – although some more practical, less romantic and besotted part of me commented wryly that he would find that no pillow at all but uncomfortably bony. At least I could go to stand by him, I thought, but as I began to rise he came back to me, and sat again on the rug. I shifted my chair a little, and, greatly daring, put my hand on his shoulder and guided him back to rest against me.

‘Do you want to say more?’ I asked him, keeping my voice low. ‘You need not tell me more, John, not if you find it hard. I can tell you what I think might have happened, if you cannot find the words.’

‘I think you know, do you not? It was – what you – you remember Stoke Moran, and Roylott? And – and our thoughts – our fears . . .?’

‘Your father began to abuse Minnie. Not just to beat her, but to use her as he should not. She was too young, but old enough for his use.’

‘I did not know, not for a very long time, not until the end, in fact. I could not suspect, it was such a heinous crime. She was frightened at first when she was home, and she sang no more, but became completely mute. Then after a while she seemed quieter and I thought they were going on better together. He was kinder to her, seemed to be taking an interest in her for the first time. He would stroke her hair, or throw her a sweetmeat. Sometimes she fawned on him, more often she shrank from him, but then that had always been her way, to be changeable, and start like a hare at noises no-one heard, or things no-one sensed. But he had stopped beating her, you see, so I counted that as a gain, and thought better of him. For he seemed, although grieving, to be quieter himself, as if the great storm had wrecked our house, and rolled on, uncaring, leaving stillness in its wake. But then it came again, and much louder, more violent, more destructive than before.'

‘She was thirteen or fourteen when she died? Was there a child, John?'

‘There was a child. I saw Minnie grow rounder, her figure develop, but I assumed it was the normal course of nature. And I did not know to suspect: I was so ignorant then, so innocent of life. I had seen the farmyard bull and the cow, seen dog and bitch couple; the cow drop her calf, and the bitch kindle and whelp. I knew it in animals: I did not recognise the signs in her because it was unthinkable that it should be so, she being so young, and kept within the house. And he confined her to her chamber the last month she was with child, on some imagined misdemeanour, and would not let her out, only the old woman in to give her food and water, and she was terrified of my father, would not go against him. I could not get in. I talked to Minnie through the locked door, every day - twice, thrice, four times a day, so she would know that she was not alone, but she never answered me.’ His voice broke. ‘I should have done more. It is no excuse to say that I was being brutally treated too, that I went to bed many a time bruised and hungry and cold. I should have had more courage, gone to someone to get help, but I did not. I did not. I should have done: I will never forgive myself for that, for being a coward.’

‘You were no coward but only a boy, alone and afraid. As for your Minnie - there would have been no help, when her time came. Or unskilled and rough help. And she was young and too small, as are the girls you try to save in the hospitals. So she and the babe died both. John, come up here. I do not care if this is not manly, at least let me hold you as a brother might. Oh my dear, my dear, I am so sorry.’

‘There was help,’ he said, into my shoulder. ‘But it was unskilled and rough help. I – I was not a doctor then, Sherlock. She had been silent for so long . . . I broke down the door when I heard her moaning, that last morning. She must have been in labour all night. Near the end, I thought all might be well, but then she screamed, and there was too much blood. She died in my arms.’

I tightened my clasp around his shoulders, and held him. I knew his tears flowed fast, but we said nothing. There was nothing more to say, only mourning, he for the innocence lost, betrayed, dying, I for the young man he had been then, and the girl he had not saved. The fire died down, the room grew dark, and rain beat against the window. Still we sat there, his hand in mine, powerless against the cruelty that had taken a young life – two lives - and a boy’s innocence with one blow.

The fire fell to ashes. It was very late when he shifted finally, and raised his head.

‘He came home blind drunk and raving later that day. God only knows what he had thought would happen to Minnie: I think he had closed his eyes to his own misdeeds. I confronted him, struck him on the mouth, told him he was a murderer and not just once, that he should see justice and no mercy, and left him maudlin and sobbing there with her body – I had made shift to clean her, and wrap her and the babe decently – it was stillborn, poor little thing. The old woman had helped me, under my strong coercion, much subdued, and muttering about the evil in men’s hearts. I took a horse, and went for the local magistrate, a bluff, honest man named Murray. He saw my father alone: I do not know what he said, but my father went for a walk with his gun, and did not return. The magistrate bade me leave all to him: he said it would be better so if all were hushed up for my sake, as well as Minnie’s and my father’s. They had been in the army together, of course, so he stood by his own. Minnie and the child – a little girl – were buried together in my mother’s grave. It was given out that she had died of a haemorrhage, and people assumed she had had consumption: the child was not mentioned.’

He fell silent for some while, then, ‘I had not thought there was so much hypocrisy among men. My father’s suicide passed as an accident, so he received Christian burial. He did not deserve it; God rot his soul in hell for the bastard he was. May he burn forever, damn him. General Murray helped me to sell the place – it had gone to rack and ruin, and was thought an unlucky house, into the bargain, after four deaths in as many years. It did not fetch much, but the proceeds saw me into the army, and then I found my own way. I have never told anyone this before; never thought to, for it is not the sort of thing you tell even a wife. But a friend – I thought I could tell a friend such as you have become, Sherlock. And now you know all. Do you see now, what drives me? Why I must strive and strive? And why the hope that these people - Burns-Gibson and his group - offer of ameliorating the lot of women and children, even if it be but a slight hope, is one to which I must, perforce, cling?’

‘I do.’ I released him from my light embrace, knowing that if I did not separate myself physically from him, I would allow my affection to take me beyond what could reasonably be construed as manly comfort, that of one soldier for another, wounded.

‘John, I cannot see but that you did as well as you could. You were only nineteen, brutally treated, beaten. We are not taught to go against our parents, our legal authority: we are trained to obey. As for the childbirth, you were untrained, unskilled, ignorant. Was there any help to be had? No? Then you did what you could: it is entirely possible that no-one, not the most skilled accoucheur could have saved her, given – oh John, my dear friend, forgive me, John, forgive me. For I teased you when we first knew each other about being skilled in dealing with childing women. I teased you. Forgive me that I misspoke so grievously - I must have hurt you so.’

‘There is nothing to forgive: you could not have known. My case - well there is not one like it in my knowledge. Nor in yours, I daresay. No, there is nothing anyone could have done: I know that now, with better training. She was too young, and too narrow-hipped, and he was a big man. And the child, I realised later when I studied such things, was not full term. It could not have survived. My poor Minnie. I loved my little sister very dearly, Sherlock, for all that she was mute and fey. She had the sweetest smile, when she was happy, and my mother’s blue eyes and black hair. I have nothing left of either of them, not even one of Minnie’s drawings.’

‘I do not know what to say to you, John. Nothing I say seems enough, nothing. You have borne so much. Lost so much.’ 

‘It is over now. They are at peace, Mama, and poor Harry, and Minnie.’ His face was ravaged, for he had wept out his old grief anew, but his eyes were quiet, and he stood straight once more, free of his burden. ‘I will never forget that you have stood by me while I told this tale, and listened to me. I feel at peace within myself now. But you can see, can you not, why I have no-one to call me by my name? There is none save you, my dear friend.’

‘I wish – I wish I had known you then,’ I said. ‘To be a comfort when you had none.

‘You comfort me now, more than you can ever know. I must sleep; it is late and I can do no more. I feel I have wept for a twelvemonth. I cannot thank you enough for bearing with my unmanliness. May I – may I speak freely of this to you, Sh – Holmes? Or does it disgust you too much?’

‘Speak whenever you wish,’ I assured him. ‘ Whatever you wish. Always. And it is not unmanly to grieve. Not over such tragedy.’

We parted that night with an embrace, silent, but most heartfelt. I had much to think about: so much of John’s – Watson’s, I reminded myself, Watson’s – behaviour made sense now: his intolerance of abuse; his patient work in the free wards, outside his normal duties, and unremunerated for the most part; his strong tenderness for children; the distress he showed when a childbirth had gone wrong. I had now at least a partial key to his character. Partial, but not whole. And with or without a key, I vowed to cherish him the more for his lack of cherishing in his childhood.

It was, also, more than clear now why he was interested in the social reforms discussed by men such as Burns-Gibson, Ellis, and Chubb: it was not enough for him to work on individual cases, but he must have a share in a movement – for such, I foresaw, it would shortly become – that would reach more than his personal remit as a healer allowed. He could touch more lives that way. For myself, I was a selfish creature, and freely admitted it: what cases I had taken on had been for their interest, their value as puzzles; they were an intellectual challenge, akin to the love of the chase. Justice motivated me, but it was not my only motivation. That should change, I vowed to myself. I would be kinder, altruistic as he, in the future.

*****

For some time after our discussion that night, Watson fought shy of me. He was polite enough, but cool, almost as if I had offended him, or taken offence with him myself. I wondered why he thus withdrew himself, but of course I could not ask. And far from renewing the subject, as he had asked if he might, he seemed rather to shun it. I respected his reticence even as it pained me, for I understood that he had gone far outside himself to tell me this part of his story, and believed that he felt shamed for having wept on my shoulder, despite the reassurances I had given him.

My case load was light throughout the early autumn. In September I was involved in the Walthamstow murder case, but I took care to keep that from Watson, for I thought it too near his own tragedy in many respects: the deaths of five young children at the hands of their father. I engaged in any activities related to it only when I could be sure that he was otherwise occupied at Barts all day, and that there would be no distressing news for him to hear, warning Lestrade that he was on no account to contact me about it at Baker Street, but to leave any messages at the Yard for me to retrieve. Once Gouldstone was respited from death and brought in as ‘Guilty but Insane’ under the new law that had been passed only a few months before, I washed my hands of all dealing with it. Of course it was in the papers, but I feigned disinterest in the reports, and ignored any of Watson’s comments about it.

For all of October, I was, in any case, involved in the dry business of microscopic analysis - analysis of paper, that driest of all dry things: I was not even working on a murder case, but assisting in the Whalley Priestman will forgery business, that was to come to trial later in the autumn. The case was of a fraudulent will – the fraudulent will of a miser, who had yet designed to leave his all to an illegitimate son, but had been cogged into signing a sheet of paper which was then turned into a will leaving most of his substance to the man with whom he lodged. It was interesting from the intellectual point of view, and it suited me. I had had enough of blood for a while.

‘What in the name of heaven are you doing?’ said Watson to me one evening, arriving home as I was deeply engaged in these researches. His tone was sharp, and it made me jump. The day had been foul: squalls of driving rain had slashed the city since morning, and flung dirty water in the faces of those who ventured out. Watson, it was clear, had been outside for some time, for the brim of his hat drooped under its weight of water, and the shoulders of his blue broadcloth – wearing a little now, after two years: I must remind him gently that he could afford a new coat – were dark with rain. He looked irritated and tired. I could see that his leg and shoulder were hurting again – the weather would always affect him, I thought, so that he would be a regular bear for bad temper when he was older. 

However, looking round at the paper-strewn surfaces, and the sickly fire dying of inanition in the grate, I could also see that at least some of his temper might be justified, for today, Baker Street was not a welcoming place for a man to come home to. There was a sharp, unpleasant stench in the room as well – the results of my chemical analysis of the paper fibres. Without answering him, I hastened to open a window to clear the mephitic air, and a gust of rain blew in, scattering papers damply all about, and sending a billow of smoke around the room. I wrestled the window closed again, and turned to apologise, but he had stamped up to his room, growling under his breath about ‘damned inconsiderate friends’, his footstep on the stair growing more and more irregular as he went.

Panic-stricken, I rang the bell for Mrs Hudson, and when she came, implored her to provide some supper for us, and to send Janey to mend the fire . She cast a severe glance around, picked up Watson’s hat and coat from where he had cast them, and tutted over how very wet they were.

‘I take it the doctor is not in a good humour,’ she said, observing me narrowly. ‘I am not surprised, Mr Holmes, when he comes home wet and cold and tired after a hard day’s work to such a pickle as this. You had best tidy up a little – more than a little, perhaps. There really is no excuse for it: if it is still the paper you are testing,’ – for she was well aware by now of the extent of my experimental work – ‘you had much better rig up a line across the room and peg the papers on it to dry, rather than letting them lie all about, haphazard in heaps, and getting crumpled. It is what any woman would do after all, that has ever run a house. But there, you’ve never done washing, so you couldn’t be expected to know. Pour Dr Watson a sherry, take it up to him, and tell him the room will be to rights in ten minutes, a good fire blazing, and there will be a roasted partridge with bread sauce for his supper, and syllabub after.’

‘I will,’ I said, thinking, not for the first time, how fortunate we had been to find this place. ‘Thank you, Mrs Hudson, I do not know how we would go on without you.’

‘Indeed, Sir, and neither do I. There’s not a man alive who doesn’t need a woman to tell him how to go on by times, and you two are no exception, bless you. And when you’ve taken the sherry up, come straight back down again, Mr Holmes. Not a single surface here is fit to put a cup upon, and there are papers on every chair. Well, it will be you that tidies it in time for dinner, not I: the very idea of it!’

I poured Watson’s sherry, and went slowly up the stairs, unsure of my welcome, so that my tap on his door was a feeble, tentative thing.

‘What?’ he growled. There was a rustle and a thud, as if he had just rolled off his bed. ‘What do you want now, Holmes?’ He sounded exasperated, I thought.

‘I have brought you a sherry, Watson.’ I did not know if I sounded meek, but I felt it. ‘Janey is mending the fire, and Mrs Hudson has roast partridge for our dinner, with syllabub for pudding. And – and I shall just leave this here with you, I think, and go down to tidy our room. I did not realise it had become such a mess, but Mrs Hudson has scolded me roundly, and told me it is no fit place for any man to come back to, and indeed it is not. I am very sorry, Watson. I know it must be infuriating to live with. It is just that I become engrossed, and I forget, you know.’

‘I do indeed know, and it is infuriating.’ His voice was gruff. ‘I was minded just to go to bed cold and supperless and be done with this wretched, desolate day, coming home and seeing all in a muddle like that. Not a chair to sit in, Holmes, that vile stench, and the fire almost out! I wonder that you did not feel the cold yourself: it was decidedly chilly even with your blasted apparatus going.’

‘I did.’ I admitted, and suppressed a shiver. ‘I am cold to my bones, now I come to think about it.’ I tapped again. ‘Will you take your sherry, my dear fellow, while I go and set the room to rights? And – I shall put on the dressing gown you bought me; it is warmer than this old one. Would it please you if I played for you tonight?’

‘It always pleases me to hear you play. But just leave the glass there, Holmes, and I shall fetch it as I come down. Give me a moment, will you? I am not - quite fit - for company at present. And – and - yes, put your damned warm gown on, lest you take cold, for heaven’s sake.’

‘C-certainly, of c-course,’ I stammered, a reason for his hesitation suddenly occurring to me. I set the glass down, and fled, feeling the blood rush to my cheeks. Alas, it rushed to other parts as well, even as I sternly bade my mind not dwell upon what Watson might have been doing on his bed. It was fortunate that both Mrs Hudson and Janey were setting the room to rights when I got downstairs; Janey building the fire high, and Mrs Hudson, having unceremoniously swept my papers to one side, laying the table with snowy linen and our best silverware. Their presence, and the need to organise my papers, was an effective stay to my unruly fancy, yet when in our warmed, tidied room, I faced Watson across our dinner table, I blushed again and again, feeling the colour mount and then recede into pallor as I shivered.

He asked me sharply if I had a fever, and insisted on taking my pulse and temperature. I acquiesced for the pleasure of his gentle fingers on my wrist, and his palm over my brow, trembling the while with feelings I could not have described.

‘If you do not have a fever now, you are letting yourself in for one,’ he commented, as he went back to his pudding. ‘What a fellow you are, Holmes!’

‘I am not the one who came in soaking wet, and would have gone to bed without supper,’ I pointed out, attempting to sound virtuous. ‘If anyone is setting themselves up for a fever, it is you, Watson. Really, must you l-lick your spoon like that, old fellow? If that was not enough syllabub for you, I am sure you may have the rest of mine and welcome, I – I do not think I can eat any more.’

‘You eat like a bird,’ he scolded me, reaching across the table. ‘Give it to me then if you cannot eat it: it is shame and a sin to let Mrs Hudson’s syllabub go to waste. What are you doing tomorrow, Holmes? Is there anything afoot? We have not been out on a case together this age, or so it seems.’

‘There is nothing,’ I lied to him. On the morrow I was to go to St Mary’s, at Paddington to consult with Lestrade on a murder victim, but we would be looking at the terribly mutilated body of a young woman, and I did not wish to subject him to the sight. ‘I might go down to Limehouse, perhaps, to encourage the Irregulars. They have been slack in bringing me in news. Perhaps they need a little financial inducement to do so. And then I must pursue this wretched forgery case.'

‘I will come with you to Limehouse then,’ he declared, to my no small consternation. ‘I must see young Billy in any case: the fracture in his leg healed well, but there was muscle wastage, and I would like to see how he goes on. We might take some pies, or a few cakes for the children, what do you think, Holmes?’

I sat silent, snared in my own lie, and for once unable to think of a rejoinder that could loose me. I had no option but to go to Lestrade at St Mary’s: he had been pressing me for the last four and twenty hours, and I had been putting him off, moreover this murder case he wanted me to see about was one following what we were beginning to see as a pattern, and a worrying pattern at that.

I had hesitated too long. Watson put his spoon down and stood, his manner constrained, and his eyes averted. ‘It is no matter. Perhaps after all you had better go on your own, Holmes: I daresay you do not need me along, and now I come to think of it there is a case I must consult Powers on tomorrow, an affliction of the eyes in a young man in one of the free wards. When Mrs Hudson comes up, do you think you could be kind enough to ask her if I might have an early breakfast tomorrow? I will be away betimes. And I shall be from home tomorrow evening: I shall accept Burns-Gibson’s standing invitation to dine with him, so you may pursue your experiments uninterrupted. Goodnight, my dear fellow, wrap yourself warmly now, and call me if you are not feeling well.’

And he was gone, with a brush of his hand over my shoulder, and his halting step on the stair. I sat desolate amid the remains of our dinner.

He was gone in the morning, when I rose to a silent house and quizzical looks from Mrs Hudson, who presented me, mid-morning, with a parcel of cakes and pies, ‘for your children, Mr Holmes. Dr Watson said you would be going to Limehouse this morning, and I was to be sure and give you these, and you were to look at young Billy’s leg and inform him if you thought all was not going well. Are you not going to St Mary’s today then, Sir? And will you be dining with the doctor and Dr Burns-Gibson this evening, or do you wish me to prepare a meal for you here?’

He was not there at midday, when having dutifully made my way to Limehouse, distributed Watson’s largesse, and inspected the grimy, but sturdy, lower limb held out for my inspection by a bashfullly grinning Billy, I took a cab to St Mary’s to meet Lestrade for our rencontre - which was grisly enough, the body of the young woman we were examining having been completely eviscerated, and her heart removed. (The following hours turned even my accustomed stomach, and I was grateful for the coffee and strong tobacco with which Lestrade plied me afterwards.)

He was not there, when, on one of the filthiest evenings I could recall, the rain coming down in wavering curtains fitfully illuminated by guttering gas lights, and every cab having vanished from the emptied streets, I wended my unhappy way to the Underground Railway line.

He was not there when I took a train from Praed Street, reflecting that I should be extremely fortunate if Mrs Hudson had kept the dinner I had commanded for seven – an hour ago now – warm for me. He was not there.

*****

It seemed to me, as I roused, that I had been asleep for some time, for my eyes were sticky and the lids unwilling to open. I knew from the scent of the linen that I lay in my own bed at Baker Street, but had no recollection of how I had arrived there. I put out a questing hand which was immediately taken, and grasped in two warm ones that I knew at once for my Watson’s.

‘Holmes!’ His voice was rough, broken; I did not know why. ‘Oh, my dear Holmes. Oh, my dear man, thank God you have woken at last. Do not move, my dear, do not move your head too much yet. I must call Mrs Hudson.’

‘Wait.’ Memory came flooding back, and with it, pain. ‘Watson, I am sorry. I hurt you, I know, and I should not have told you what I did. It was not that I did not want you, it was that I thought you would be too affected; it was almost too much even for me. When I said that to you yesterday - ’

‘Yesterday! You have been lying here for three days out of your senses, Holmes.’ He rubbed a hand across his eyes, eyes that were reddened and weary, as if he had wept. Although he was clean, as always, he had shaved carelessly, missing a line of bristle along his jaw, and his dressing gown was crumpled. ‘Hush now, you must not talk, but I assure you all is well. Lestrade has explained to me what you were about, there is no need to fret or to worry about anything. It is I, on the contrary, who have been a fool. You thought to protect me after I told you about Minnie, did you not? And that is why you did not want me?’

‘I was so sorry, Watson. It hurt you so terribly, then. I did not want you to have to see – all of that. Watson, how did I come here, and why is my head so sore? What has been happening, these three days? I have been in an accident, but how?’

‘There was a great explosion: the damned Fenians planted a bomb, two bombs. Your train was caught up in it: I shall explain all later, Do pray hush, my dear, and be still. I must call Mrs Hudson, she has been fretting her heart out for her boy. And there is nourishing soup: you must have soup.’

‘A bomb! In the Underground railway! I remember nothing after leaving St Mary’s.’ I attempted to struggle up, and was immediately pressed down again. ‘Watson, were you there? Were you hurt?’

‘Lie down, damn you. I was not. I was at dinner with Burns-Gibson, and sore at heart with it, when came a messenger post-haste from Lestrade to say that there had been a bomb set off between Charing Cross and Westminster, which caused little damage; then five minutes later a second at Praed Street, several carriages of a train derailed and glass everywhere, many injured – sixty, indeed, at last count - and among them, you, found unconscious and recognised by an intelligent constable on the scene, may he be blessed for ever.’ He swallowed hard, and blinked.

‘Burns-Gibson and I hastened to help of course, with others of St Mary’s who were quickly on the scene, but I thought only of you. I had you conveyed here, it being better than the hospital, and here you have lain ever since. Poor Lestrade has been every day to enquire after you, the house is haunted by a succession of anxious boys, and little Janey is wholly dissolved in tears. And as for Mrs Hudson, she has been near out of her mind with worry. Now will you lie still, and behave yourself while I call her? I shall give you your soup, and you must rest for a while. It is just like yourself that you should immediately want to know everything, Holmes, but you must stay quiet and be content to be doctored.’

After a final admonitory pat on the hand – my right hand, for the left, it appeared, was heavily bandaged – he left the room, and I lay back against my pillows. My head was throbbing, my hand sore – I recognised the distinctive itch and pull of sutures, so I must have been cut by the glass – and bruises were making themselves felt about my person, but for all that, a welcome spring, a freshet of gladness welled in my heart that he and I were no long at odds.

He was not long away, but came back with the threatened soup, and Mrs Hudson, laughing and weeping at once, wiping her eyes on the corner of her apron, and smiling at me as she scolded - though to what purpose I did not know, for there was nothing I could have done about my injury: it was pure chance that had taken me there, as with all the other folk so affected. Watson sent her away after a few moments, and, sitting behind me on the bed, lifted me against his shoulder to support me while I ate my soup. I felt that he would fain have fed it to me, for he cradled me like a cat her kitten, but he stopped short of that. When I had eaten, I was dizzy, and even a little nauseated, and he bade me stay upright, still resting against him, until the feeling passed off.

By the time I felt more like myself, it had been long dark, and he ordered me to sleep. It appeared that I had been washed, during my mind’s absence, and my nightshirt changed, for it was not the one I recollected having worn on that night of my argument with him. I blushed to think that he had seen me naked, had tended to me, handled me, and I blushed even more when he handed me a bottle, rather than allow me to struggle to the necessary office. As I readied myself for bed, so did he, retreating modestly behind a screen to remove his shirt and smalls, and reappearing nightshirted and gowned to settle down on the truckle-bed that had been brought in to the corner of the room. He was barefoot – I had noticed before that he had charmingly delicate feet, small, and slight-boned, the instep dusted with a light fuzz of golden hair – and when he came to perch on the edge of my bed and smile shyly at me, I could have fallen to my knees at those feet and worshipped him.

‘I am so very glad you are alive, and not too badly harmed, Holmes,’ he said to me. He did not touch me, but his eyes met mine, serious, direct, thoughtful. ‘When I thought I had lost you, all that was in my mind was that I had offended you somehow, and might never mend it. I thought, you see, that you did not want me on cases any more. I knew there were some in September that you had kept from me, for Burns-Gibson mentioned them. Then when I talked to Lestrade – poor man, he was so concerned about you, and not just, I think, because he stood to lose your assistance – I realised that what you had been keeping from me, you had concealed out of concern. Is that truly so, Holmes?’

‘I did not want to distress you,’ I told him. ‘And you were distant with me after you had told me about your childhood. I felt that it had raised ghosts for you that you regretted raising, and that by not bringing them sharp to your mind with our cases, I might lay them again. And the answer to the question that you asked me, and I did not answer – whether you dwelt too much on those events, or whether you should be more angry about them – is that what happened to you was terrible in so many ways I cannot begin to count them, and that if you are angry about it, it is no wonder. I have never told you anything of my childhood, and may never do so, for I also have things on which I do not care to dwell - but it was not terrible as yours was, Watson.’

‘I was distant because I felt you might think less of me, the poor and ineffectual son of an incestuous father, a wife-beater and a drunkard. The brother of a suicide, for effectively it was slow suicide, and an addict. And then Minnie – there are those who would blame her. And so I gave you the chance to draw away from me, and it seemed to me, when you no longer invited me on cases, that you had taken it.’

‘I do not think less of you for anything. I do not think you ineffectual – or a coward.’

‘I do not in the least regret telling you. It was a great relief, to have someone know.'

‘Good. Watson, I do not think I have ever felt so weary, and my head feels as if a thousand drums are reverberating within. Will it ever pass off, do you think?’

‘You were rendered unconscious by a knock on that same intransigent head, you foolish man,’ he told me, but his tone was gentle, and the word ‘foolish’ almost a caress. ‘I begged you to be still, but you have insisted on conversing. How do you expect to feel, pray? Yes, it will pass off, over the next days and weeks. Drink your willowbark tea – that is all I can allow you - and close your eyes. You will feel very much better in the morning.’

‘And you will still be here?’

‘I will still be here, Holmes, depend upon it.’

*****

My headache was not, in fact, better in the morning, or for several mornings after that, but increased most vilely upon me, accompanied by a touch of fever. Throughout the ensuing week, Watson cared for me diligently: never had man a better nurse, tender and capable, firm and kind. I was not very seriously ill, but felt languid and disinclined for exertion, and willing to let the world wander along on its own for a time. Watson let his work go hang for all but the poorest patients (whom he would never abandon on any account) and we sat companionably by the fire, reading the Persian ghazals of Hafez in Whinfield’s translation, and comparing his new rendering of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam unfavourably to Fitzgerald’s.

All too soon however, society – and a society - intruded upon our idyll. Throughout October, Chubb, Ellis, and the pestilential Burns-Gibson had continued their campaign to woo Watson to their infant coterie. By November that bastard slip of growth had been baptised with the rather pretentious soubriquet ‘The Fellowship of the New Life’, and struggled from meeting to ill-attended meeting in a welter of good intentions that led nowhere to action, and resolutions noteworthy only for resolving nothing. Watson, as I said, they courted assiduously – and once I had recovered from my temporary indisposition, I found myself wooed along with him.

For myself, I had no patience with any of the group’s doings, from the singing of their ‘humanistic’ hymns, milkily warm as Wordsworth-and-water, to their inability to determine what, actually, was the purpose of their gatherings, but I was obliged, in order to keep Watson under my eye, to attend and be civil. Their politics seemed to me to be nothing but diluted Marx, although many of them did not truly know his work at that time: the German philosopher had died six months earlier, and in England his influence was recognised only by a few of us who had read his ‘Das Kapital’.

(This book – and tedious enough it was - had been recommended to me by my brother (I think partly in a spirit of mischief, for he always purported to think me an anarchist) and I had perused it with some interest, but more dissent, I believe, than he would ever have expected. Few of the Fellowship had read it in the original. Had they been aware of the full import of Marx’s political theories, they would have shunned him as they would shun a leper: for all that they discussed the formation of new colonies in which everything would be held in common, had they actually been required to put this into practice, the air would have filled with cries of outraged privilege. Nor would they have recognised in themselves the slaves of Capital: they saw themselves as liberators, and were unconscious of their own chains.)

In any case, philosophy and politics aside, I had no intention of seeing Watson succumb to the blandishments of either the male or the female disciples of this group. He was fatally popular with both: one could not relax for a moment without him being drawn from one’s side by some sweetly-cooing lady asking for the doctor’s opinion on her pet philanthropic project, or some earnest-eyed young sprig asking for the soldier’s worldly advice. I spent the meetings on tenterhooks, wondering if he would be wooed further from me by one of the Misses Ford, or the earnest Miss Haddon, or serious Miss Robins, and whether, in that case, my love, unspoken as it was, would have any power at all to draw him back.

By the December meeting, as I had predicted, all unanimity of spirit was gone, for nothing, as a chronicler of the group commented, more promotes discord than close association between persons with the strong and independent opinions of the average socialist. It might be expected that high ideals would be a protection against such discord, but, as I remarked to Watson, it appeared to be a common experience of groups such as these that the higher the ideals, the fiercer the hostilities of the idealists. ‘Or in other words,’ as Watson replied, ‘they are inhabiting cloud-cuckoo-land: the whole damned, contentious, quarrelsome set of them.’ For my worldly doctor, with more age and experience, had both more tolerance of dissent than the younger idealists, and less patience with their insistence on idealistic purity.

And yet, after all, I was grateful for those meetings, for it was at one of them that I came for the first time into the company of one who was an invert professed and unashamed. He – Edward Carpenter - was a man ten years older than me, and openly of my hidden persuasion. I was fascinated by him thereafter, although we could not have been more different. I knew of him first as a poet, of course – his slim, recently published volume ‘Towards a New Democracy’, was almost required reading for the Fellowship, and I had been forced to endure many a Whitmanesque stanza. (Watson liked it: he did not distinguish between unadulterated Whitman and Whitman’s pale political and poetical disciple. For myself, I was not an admirer of the great American. I found him too wordy and discursive.)

Yet when we met Carpenter, at a meeting at Williams’s Library, in Gower Street, I instantly repented ever applying the epithet ‘pale’ to him. We were listening that evening, Watson very attentive, and I rather less bored than usual, to the Russian exile, Nikolai Tchaikovsky, a man who had been part of the Narodnik movement: an active revolutionary, whose experience was worth more than all the boyish dreams of the Fellowship put together. Although I found his views extreme, the man had at least the merit of having had the courage to put them into practice, and his stories of Russian life were engaging and well told. I was, I remember, sitting with my back to the door, and hearing someone open it, I turned round for a moment, and saw two brightly gleaming eyes out of the background of a quietly humorous face. That was my first sight of Carpenter, and in it, I gained a vivid impression of his character: that of a kindly, open man, curious, unafraid.

He went to sit beside Havelock Ellis, who, at the end of Tchaikovsky’s lecture, brought him over and introduced him to me, and to Watson. He shook hands cordially with both of us, making some slight comments about the speaker, Tchaikovsky, who also arrived at that moment to join us, and on being told our names, addressed some very flattering comments to me. I was not, alas, as appreciative of the great man’s conversation as I should have been, for I had half an ear at least on Watson and his interlocutor.

‘I much admire your work,’ he was telling Carpenter earnestly. ‘I am new to these political ideas myself, having but within the last two years returned from combat, but working as I do now, among many who are effectively disenfranchised, I see the want of a more equitable distribution of wealth and power. And women, particularly, must be allowed a say in their own destinies. It is a shame and a sin that half the population has no voice. I wish there were more who shared your views.’

I reflected, sardonically, that but a few weeks ago it had been a shame and a sin to let Mrs Hudson’s syllabub go to waste, and that the two things were by no means comparable in importance, murmuring, meanwhile, an agreement to Tchaikovsky’s comments about our judicial system, and our police work (which he compared to his own, to Russia’s detriment).

‘I applaud your sentiments,’ Carpenter told my friend. He had a fine speaking voice, rounded and clear, not in the least like my own rather strident tones. ‘And I thank you Sir, both for your honourable service to our country, and for the work you do now. My friend Ellis has mentioned your work in the free wards, Doctor Watson, and how patiently you strive to better the lot of the poorest. You are a true reformer.’

I saw Watson blush– yes, he positively blushed, like a boy at his first dance – while Carpenter continued to regard him with that gentle, encompassing smile. The man fairly radiated warmth, sincerity, openness, and Watson was blossoming in it like a daisy in the sun. His eyes brightened and he began to quiz Carpenter about his own work in Sheffield, (where he was much engaged with educating the working man) and his visit to Walt Whitman. Carpenter, for his part, extolled the virtues of his workers: ‘these rough lads, down to earth, simple of mind and manner, hands calloused with toil, bodies redolent of honest sweat’ in a way that left no doubt in my mind – and, it became clear, no doubt in Watson’s mind either – of his liking for physical, as well as mental communion with these objects of his approbation. Upon Ellis re-joining the pair of them, the conversation became more medical, and I became painfully, bitterly aware, while trying to sustain a discussion of Russia’s history with Tchaikovsky – who was not, I was saddened to learn, related to the composer whose works I enjoyed so much – that their subject was inversion.

I could not bear it. It was intolerable, a chain of words tightened round me to chafe and torment. They tossed around terms such as ‘Uranian’ ‘Urning’ ‘Dioning’ with gay abandon, as if to be such a thing were no more forbidden than the indulgence of the more natural urges for man for woman. They pondered the reasons for what they called ‘homosexuality’ (a linguistic, if not a metaphorical bastard of a term) as defined in the writings of one Karl-Maria Kertbeny, of whom I had never heard.

Watson, who, to my horror was far more knowledgeable than I had thought, referenced the classification system of a Karl Heinrich Ulrich with regard to men of a female nature, and I wondered, in sudden, savage despair, where he would place me in that categorisation. Because, I think, he was speaking to another medical man, he discussed at greater length, and in more detail than he ever had with me, the liaisons he had previously referenced from his army days, considering whether they might be evidence for what Ulrich termed the ‘Uraniaster’ or man who lay with men solely because there were no women to be had, and positing that at least one of his men had been by nature a ‘Weibling’, or feminine-acting man. That topic exhausted, Carpenter expounded on his own enlightenment, describing how he had come to the conclusion that his own affectional nature was that of an Urning, and how since that revelation he had realised he need not be as he had hitherto been, alone.

‘I discovered,’ he owned openly to the small group that had gathered round him, drawn like bees to the honey of his warmth, the kindness of his gaze, the undoubted charm of his manner, ‘that others of like temperament to myself were abundant in all directions, and to be found in every class of society; and I am sure that I need not say that from that time forward, life was changed for me. I found sympathy, understanding, love, in a hundred different forms, and my world of the heart became as rich in that which it needed as before it had been fruitless and barren.’

‘And do you,’ asked Ellis, ‘ consider yourself the better for having acted on these desires, consenting to fulfil that sexual attraction that society so reprobates and to follow your affectional nature?’

‘Of course.’ Carpenter was in earnest now. ‘and whether such a state of affairs may be desirable or undesirable, whether it indicate a high moral nature or a low moral nature and so forth, are questions which – in a land where everything is either moral or immoral - are sure to be asked. Yet in a sense such questions are quite beside the point. They do not alter the fact of my nature, and that has always been the same since my very earliest days. I cannot recollect a time when I was not as I am now. But it will be evident enough – to anyone who takes the trouble to think about what these things mean – that to a person of my emotional nature, the conditions which brought about – to a comparatively late age – the absence of marriage, or its equivalent were a fruitful source of trouble and nervous prostration . . . ’

How deeply I felt that, I mused, listening. Had I not experienced the same within myself? My companion had, by this time, also caught Carpenter’s comments, spoken as they were in the clear tones of an accustomed orator, and by mutual unspoken agreement we joined their group, as he continued, ‘ . . . I realised in my own person some of the sufferings which are endured by an immense number of modern women, especially of the well-to-do classes, as well as by that large class of men of whom we have just been speaking, and to whom the name Uranians is often given.’

‘And do you,’ asked Tchaikovsky, ‘consider that these problems differ between the social classes? That one class is more exempt from them than another?’

‘Certainly I do. I can hardly bear, even now that I have broken through the double veil, to think of my earlier life, and of that idiotic social reserve and Britannic pretence which prevailed over all that period – and to a great extent still does prevail, especially among the so-called well-to-do classes of this country – the denial and systematic ignoring of the obvious facts of heart and sex, and the consequent desolation and nerve-ruin - ’ he broke off, seemingly much moved.

‘Not just the ignoring,’ put in Watson, quietly, ‘It is the ignorance about the whole subject that is productive of so much pain. And that is irrespective of class, is it not?’

‘Indeed,’ agreed Carpenter. ‘But it is the, as one might term it, neurasthenia, among members of the middle classes, that is so damaging, brought up as they often are in strong constraints, every common impulse, every natural feeling stifled. The boys are ignored by their parents and sent away at the earliest opportunity to be snipped and forced into the shape of diplomats and soldiers to support their country, the girls, like my poor sisters, are idle in a household where servants do even the lightest housework, wearing away their lives and their affectional capacities with nothing to do and no-one to care for – a little music, a little drawing, a walk up and down the Promenade - but the primal needs of life unspoken and unalloyed. They are suffering from a state of society that has set up gold and gain in the high place of the human heart, and to make more room for these has disavowed and dishonoured love . . . oh, it does not bear thinking about. Their state of life is wholly artificial: for the working classes at least, there is the immediacy of their loves to keep them nearer wholesomeness and more honest expression of affection, because there is less artificiality of social intercourse, of dress, even, and of habit.’

‘No, instead there is hunger, poverty and ignorance,’ interjected Tchaikovsky, dryly. ‘Little use to care for affectional nature if the means of feeding the body is absent. There must be regulation of the means of production, so that all are fed, and none suffer: and this will not come from reformation, but from revolution.’

‘True. It is true,’ Carpenter admitted. ‘I am too carried away by my own flights of fancy. I assure you, I do not mean to ignore, or reduce in importance the very real sufferings that exist among our poor. I meant only to say that there has been more joy for me in the affectionate arms of the simple working man than the neurotic affections of the scions of rich families. But as for reformation or revolution – I have hopes that we may achieve this better society peacefully, Sir, do not you . . .?’

I made some excuse and stole quietly away to the window, where I stood, looking out into the street. I could not bear to hear any more. Here was a man, an invert, as was I, openly avowing his preferences, his ‘affectional nature’ as he called it. To say he was shameless would have been wrong: he did not see anything to be ashamed of. He had openly accepted his own nature. He had sought fulfilment, had lain in men’s arms and experienced – what I would never experience. I had thought myself accustomed to my own desires. I knew myself to be an invert: what more was there to know? I did not seek to conceal my nature by marriage to some wretched woman; I was not such a cheat. I merely refrained from seeking what I had had to own to myself I desperately wanted. I had thought myself above love, but I was not. I thought myself brave for acknowledging my own inversion, but this man was braver than I for despite the dangers and difficulties, he had persisted, with a curious innocence that seemed to defy the world, in finding his own measure of love with his own kind. He had not meant his words to sting, he had spoken innocently – he was well meaning, and with goodwill to all as was plain to be seen – but his words had barbs, and they had pierced me in tender places.

“Idiotic social reserve and Britannic pretence,” he had said. Oh, I was skilled at that – I had practised it for decades. “The denial and systematic ignoring of the obvious facts of heart and sex.” I had denied – denied like Peter denying the Christ, destructively, persistently. Was it to the ruin of my soul, the entire stunting of my ability to form any normal relationship? “The consequent desolation and nerve-ruin,” that too I had experienced. My life – my affectional life – had been a desert until Watson entered it. Watered by his kindness, a few, tentative blooms had sprung, but I would not allow them root-room, for I was afraid that they would grow to vines, strangling, thorny, dangerous. I feared their lush potential, were I to give them growth. “The neurotic affections of the scions of rich families.” That hurt worse than all, a painful reminder of who and what I was.

A hand touched the small of my back, just above my buttocks, and I leaned into it, seeking its warmth. ‘Watson,’ I said, thinking it was he, ‘Watson, my dear fellow, I am so very weary. May we go home now, do you think?’

‘It is not Dr Watson,’ said a voice, quietly, and I turned, horrified, to find Carpenter regarding me with kind, worried eyes. ‘Do not start, Mr Holmes, you have not betrayed yourself. Or if you have, it is only to me, and I do not matter. I hurt you deeply, did I not, prating of neurasthenia and the denial of affections as I did? I should have realised, my poor lad, that I was wounding you, but I spoke without thinking. You have that same heart-hunger as I did.'

He had caught me off guard, and I could not help it: my gaze turned involuntarily to where Watson, animation in his figure, his eyes, his gestures, was still debating with Ellis, Chubb, Tchaikovsky and a group of others. Carpenter’s eyes followed mine, and he nodded. ‘Yes, your doctor-companion. You look at him now with your very heart in your eyes, my poor boy. Will you not risk all and tell him?’

‘I cannot.’ I felt so beaten down, and he was so kind – I trusted him instinctively, which I was never wont to do with anyone, but what reason had he to hurt me? I could do more damage to him than he to me. ‘He is not an invert. You have heard him speak: he is not antipathetic, he does not hate, but he is not as – as you are, and, and, as – as I am. I cannot risk his friendship. I have that at least.’

He nodded. ‘I understand. It is only what I have done in the past, what many of us do: we kill our love-liking at birth, so that we can retain the shadow of our wanting, even if we cannot have its substance. And so the poor soul starves on, longing, hopeless, when it could have grasped after substance and found itself fed. Thinking itself in an arid, barren desert, when fruit lies waiting to be plucked, and there are streams of living water to quench its long thirst.’

‘But what if the fruit is the fruit of Tantalus?’ I was too weary to fence with him, or deny, and there was a curious freedom, a relief, in for once speaking out to one who would not condemn me. ‘If it recedes from my grasp as I reach or worse, allows itself to be plucked yet when tasted turns to ashes in my mouth? What if the water sinks from beneath my lip as I bend to drink, or, consenting to be swallowed, turns to poison? What then, Carpenter? He is,’ I clenched my teeth hard before admitting it, ‘he is my all. I will not lose him, but keep him, come what may.’

‘He watches you: look up, lad. Ah, that loving smile! I think you need have no doubt of his affections for you, Mr Holmes, never was man more fond. And he is a handsome fellow, with those blue eyes,’ and as I straightened, glaring at him. ‘My boy, you must not mind me. I am no threat to you or your doctor, indeed, I wish you all the happiness in the world: I am happy myself, and so I like to see it in others. He is coming this way: a frown mars the smoothness of that noble brow. You are perhaps looking too pale for his liking: in fact, my dear, you are too pale and attenuated for mine. Have you been ill? ’

I was explaining about the Praed Street bombing, when Watson reached my side. Without ado, he took my wrist, pressed his fingers over my suddenly accelerating pulse, and frowned. ‘You have had enough, Holmes: I should never have brought you here, or having done so, not allowed you to stay for so long. You are not yet fully recovered, it would seem. Your pulse is galloping out of all rhythm, and you look paler than I like. Forgive me, my dear fellow, I really should never have dragged you here. By your leave, Mr Carpenter, I must take my friend – my patient - home. He has not long been out of his bed after a bad knock on the head.’

‘By all means, take your friend home to bed,’ there was a dulcet mischief in his tone that made me quake, but Watson was oblivious. ‘Take him home and care for him,’ he went on. ‘I may not see you at one of these gatherings for some time, gentlemen, for I have recently purchased a property at Millthorpe, in Sheffield, and as well as devoting myself to writing and lecturing, shall be endeavouring to support myself by market gardening. But I shall always be happy to see you, should you visit. It is a bachelor establishment: you would be allowed the fullest freedoms. Dr Watson, it has been a pleasure to meet you, Sir. I was about to promise your friend, Mr Holmes here, a copy of a book that has been written by a friend of mine. I believe both he and you would find it of interest. It addresses the issues we were talking of earlier. The title is ‘A Problem In Greek Ethics,’ and my friend is John Addington Symonds.’

‘I know of him: indeed, I have his Introduction to the Study of Dante,’ I said, intrigued despite myself. ‘I know he has written ‘Studies of the Greek Poets’ but I was not aware he had touched on ethics.'

‘Although it was written a decade ago, it was not printed until this year, and there are but ten copies in existence. Its subject matter is perhaps contentious, but to a medical man and a student of nature, it will be intelligible and germane. I disagree with him in some respects – I believe a more pragmatic view can, and should be taken of the physical expression of affection – but it is a noble, a brave piece of work. I would only beg that you return it to me once read. Symonds distributed most of his copies, and since, because of his health, he is now a resident of a Davos sanatorium, I should not be able to obtain another.’

Watson promised earnestly to return the book after reading it, ‘by all means, Sir, and Holmes and I will peruse it together; for as you say, a good book is best enjoyed in company. And I am sorry we are unlikely to meet again. I have much enjoyed our intercourse. I honour your courage and openness about these issues, both with what you term ‘Uranian love’ and the position of women, and only wish it were easier for those like you to speak out. It grieves my heart to see so many good men and women deprived of joy, of love. If – when – society is changed, there will, we must hope, be no more fear, and all may love as they wish.’

‘May I venture to ask if there is some fair creature who keeps your heart?’ enquired Carpenter, his tone light and casual. ‘A future Mrs Watson, perhaps? It would be well worth the winning, that heart, I think.’

‘I am an invalided soldier, and a part-time doctor,’ was the reply, ‘I do not consider myself a worth-while match for any woman. I am quite content – quite happy – sharing a house and company with Holmes here. We suit each other well, do we not, my dear fellow?’ and he crooked his arm for me to take it, unconscious of the amusement and encouragement that that wretch, Carpenter was telegraphing to me with gently smiling eyes. ‘Our dear, kind landlady cares for all our material needs, and for the rest, we look after each other, as good comrades-in-arms must.’

I could see what Carpenter was doing, of course: he was endeavouring to find out for me whether Watson would be averse to my love – even, perhaps, to my person - but it would not do. I could risk it no longer, but with a word in Watson’s ear about my throbbing head, I set in motion our leave-taking. Carpenter took my hand in both of his and earnestly wished me farewell, begging me to consider our conversation carefully. Watson, he patted on the shoulder. ‘You are a kind man, Dr Watson, the world has not driven it out of you as it has with so many others. Keep that kindness: there are always those in need of it, and sometimes those we least expect.’

*****

We did not converse much on the way home from that meeting: I prevented it by pleading headache, and so escaped discourse. The subject of Carpenter came up several times over the next few days, however, and when the promised book arrived, we did, in fact, read it together over the dark December and January evenings. It was, as I had suspected it might be, a passionate, detailed and scholarly exegesis of the phenomenon of Paiderastia in Greek society: the deep and spiritual affection between an older and a younger man. Watson bridled at its title and subject matter: he was no supporter of what he termed ‘the damnable corruption of the innocent,’ and at first was angry that Carpenter had supposed him to be in favour of love between man and child. I persuaded him, however, that neither Carpenter nor Symonds was advocating the vileness that had marred his own young life, and he allowed, somewhat reluctantly, that the situation had been different in Ancient Greece, where adulthood, and the taking of an adult’s part in life came earlier than it did with us, and where the relationship of erastes and eromenos, of lover and beloved, was spiritual, conducing to valour and high ideals, rather than what the Greeks would have termed effeminacy and softness, or even brute desire.

‘But I still cannot allow there to be any true reciprocity where there is not complete equality of mind and living and understanding,’ he said to me one afternoon towards the end of January, when we had snatched a little leisure to finish our reading. ‘Whether it be between man and woman, or man and man – or indeed, I suppose,’ he added, in tones of slight surprise, ‘between woman and woman. For we read here, do we not, that Sappho and the Aeolian women were so affected, one to another, even if it was not regarded as honourably as paiderastia. And Carpenter did mention – I think it was after you had left our group for your little drop of solitude – that of course there are many women who have no desire for the sexual relationship with men but only with women, and some among both men and women who have no desire for the sexual relationship at all. There are most certainly those who would not agree with the celebrated Dr Johnson when he says ‘marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures’. There are always those for whom celibacy is in itself a lure, otherwise there would be no monasteries, and no convents either. I wonder, then, how it is we have come to fix so definitively and exclusively on only one right way of doing things? And how we have come too, to allowing nothing else?’

‘For that, you must read Leviticus.’ I pointed out. ‘And I think, Watson, that you will find that the views and needs of an agricultural society based around tribal units, and always in need of more fertile land have much to do with it. They have certainly superseded the Greek model wherever Christianity holds sway.’

‘You are right, Holmes, of course. Well, this is an excellent little book, and I am glad to have read it: I shall feel better informed in the future if I have ever to deal with men such as I did in my army days. But it is not quite what Carpenter is advocating, is it? Symonds’ premise is that the deepest love between men is sanctioned by the Greek tradition, and that it should not be censured. He talks much of the difference between heroic and profane love, and how one is more to be praised than the other. Carpenter, however makes no bones about such a love being given physical expression: he takes male lovers. I wonder that he escapes censure, but then he is such a singular character – has such a kind, winning manner – it seems impossible to believe him guilty of wrong-doing. It is not wrong when he does it, I think.’

‘He is a kind man,’ I said, feeling that the conversation had gone as far as it could. ‘Whatever you think of his – ah – affectional nature.’

‘You do not approve?’

I could have sworn there was a shade of sadness in his tone. ‘I do not disapprove.’ I replied. ‘I think that the less these matters are discussed openly, the better, although of course I do not mean that they may not be raised occasionally between friends, such as we are. I simply prefer to be cautious when exposing anyone to the potential censure of the prurient, the curious and the ill-disposed.’

‘You are right, of course.’ But there still seemed to be a touch of constraint in his manner. ‘Holmes, I was so busy with meetings and at the hospital over the Christmas and New Year period, and you so occupied with Lestrade, that I felt a decided lack of your company. Here we are already at the end of the month, and we have not been out. I would very much like us to dine together tonight. Could you fancy a meal at Romano’s with me?’

‘Of course,’ There were no circumstances in which it did not suit me to dine with him. ‘What do you think of the latest turn the Fellowship has taken, Watson? What of this split? I find it quite amusing that after all the delays in deciding upon its remit, the more political branch has named itself after the great Delayer himself: who would ever have thought that Fabius Cunctator would rise again as the patron of a little political society designed to do good slowly and by stealth, as it were. Our fiery friend Tchaikovsky does not approve, you know: he is all for revolution. But for myself I prefer the more decorous route of reformation, as I think you do.’

‘Oh, I am well content to be a Fabian,’ he replied. ‘I shall pay my dues, and support the movement politically, and when letters are to be written, I will be there with my pen. I shall even attend the occasional meeting: I feel it my duty to be supportive wherever I can. I agree with you, however, that one cannot be always attending meetings and engaging in earnest conversation: too much of that and there is no time for doing. I know you have not wholly approved my venture into the world of reform, Holmes. It has been kind in you to accompany me, and show an interest. And I have learned much from it, as, you say, have you. But it seems to me that the more one stands and listens to speeches, or engages in high-toned political discourse, the less one works with the people affected by the political situation one is speaking about, and the more one loses sight of the people who are in one’s care. I do not choose to do that. For myself, I feel I am better soldiering on in the field, rather than planning the fight.’

‘And since all that some people do is to plan, but never to carry out their plans, I feel that yours is the more noble course,’ We had been sitting together on the sofa poring over Symonds’ book, and I rose to take it from him, and put it away on a shelf. ‘We shall send this back when we have finished it, and follow our politics at some small remove from henceforth, for you, as you have said, feel better if you benefit humanity by healing its ills, and I, I must confess, if I do so by catching its criminals. And although I do not object to the cut and thrust of political debate, I must confess to a deep, and ever deepening loathing of the society, the smallness and the smaller talk that goes with it as it is manifested in the political meeting. I propose, therefore, that we do as much good as we might in our own humble way, and, other than engaging when necessary with those issues that it is the bounden duty of every man (who is not an idiot) to engage in, we waste no more time upon theorising. Are you content with that, Watson, my dear chap?’

‘Content with that, and with our lives here, my dear Holmes,’ he said, and smiled up at me, his gaze guileless and warm with unshadowed affection. ‘So very content.’

‘Good,’ I touched him on the shoulder briefly, a fleeting, treasured caress. ‘Then when you are ready, we shall go to Romano’s. And I would welcome your help on this new case that we may be consulted on, Watson. I had a telegram from Lestrade earlier, and it promises to be most interesting. Are you with me, my friend?’

‘Indeed I am, ever and always,’ He stood, alert as a hound given the scent, sturdy, reliable . . . loving, loyal . . . infinitely beloved. ‘I am your man. Shall I bring my revolver, do you think, Holmes?’

‘Perhaps not to Romano’s, my dear fellow,’ I said. ‘We are only going to dine – this evening, at least.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prelude Notes.  
> During Holmes's journey home, on the track of Moran, he passes through Jodhpur on the way to Karachi . . .and has an unexpected rencontre  
> Jaswant Singh, and his brother, Sir Pratap, who visited England and was knighted by Queen Victoria, were staunch supporters of the British in India. They, and Major Beatson, were also dedicated polo players.  
> Much of the detail about the Mehrangarh Fort and the Moti Mahal comes from the reminiscences and diary of a certain Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Sarajevo, who was travellong incognito in India and visited Jodhpur in February 1893. Yes, that Franz Ferdinand: the one whose assassination kicked off WWI.  
> General Lord Frederick Roberts, the Commander in Chief of all India, was in Jodhpur visiting Jaswant Singh on his way home at the end of his term of office, in April 1893, when Holmes passed through also. Of course he met 'Sigerson' there, as is clear from a newspaper report in the London Evening Standard in June of that year, where his views on the Russian threat to Afghanistan were made clear in a lively account of his tenure as C-in-C, a position which in which he was regarded as very successful.  
> Roberts is also the 'Little Bobs' or 'Bobs Bahadur' of Kipling's poem, beloved by his troops because he never sent them into combat without due consideration. He is also the army commander who, after the disaster of Maiwand, (in which Watson was wounded, and after which he was so very ill) defeated Ayyub Khan, the victor of Maiwand, at Kandahar. He did also, after Maiwand, visit the wounded troops, among whom was poor Watson.  
> Readers may recognise parts of Watson's 'eulogy' on Holmes, the first draft of which, quite sensibly, Mycroft would not let him publish. Some of the wording, however, is taken from the Stark Munro letters, where Munro is lamenting his distance from his friend.  
> The Pearl Fishers, then known as 'Leila' was then one of Bizet's less popular operas. Its English premiere in late April, 1887, happens just after Watson made his dash to France to rescue an exhausted Holmes after the Maupertuis case, and just before the Adventure of the Reigate Squires. The duet in the final scene between Nadir and Zurga, although ostensibly about rivalry between the two of them about Leila, the priestess, has always been considered to have strong homoerotic overtones. At the end of the opera, Nadir and Leila escape together, while Zurga dies to save his friend. There are therefore many resonances for Watson when, in 1893, he applies this to his own situation.
> 
> Holmes' Narration Notes.  
> During the Autumn of 1883, the groups of people who would form The Fellowship of the New Life, and later on the Fabian Society, were coming together in London. Dr Burns-Gibson, whom we have already met, was friendly with many of them. Havelock Ellis, later to write one of the seminal works on homosexuality in the English language, was also a member of the Fellowship.
> 
>  
> 
> The eruption of Krakatau was on the 26th and 27th August.
> 
>  
> 
> The Walthamstow murders, committed by William Gouldstone who, shortly after his wife gave birth to twins, killed all five of his children including the newborn infants, were one of the first cases where the verdict of 'Guilty but Insane' was given, after an appeal based on the new Criminal Insanity Act, passed in August 1883.
> 
>  
> 
> The October 30th Clan Na Gael bombings were part of the wider Fenian campaign for Irish home rule.
> 
>  
> 
> Most information about the early days of the Fellowship, and the Fabians, are from either Edward Pease's History of the Fabians, Chubb's memoirs, or Havelock Ellis's rather self-congratulatory autobiography, 'My Life'.  
> Information about Edward Carpenter - he was amazing: do read about him - is from his autobiography 'My Days and Dreams'.  
> All details, times, places, and views ascribed to individuals are correct, authentic, and in Carpenter's case are in fact his own words. The meeting where Watson and Holmes meet Nikolai Tchaikovsky, the Russian exile and revolutionary, was also attended by Carpenter, Chubb and Ellis. Holmes' description of his first view of Carpenter is in fact, Ellis's. Carpenter was one of the most 'out' gay men of the time, living with his long-term partner, George Merritt, for over four decades in their house in Sheffield, which became a place of pilgrimage for young gay men, and women. The pair of them even managed to survive the post Oscar Wilde persecutions unscathed, a fact that is often ascribed to Carpenter's kindness, warmth, and charisma, and Merritt's cheerfulness and charm. Merritt served as the model for Alec Scudder in E. M Forster's 'Maurice.'
> 
>  
> 
> John Addington Symonds was also influential in gay Victorian circles. Like many gay men of the time, he was also married, and had four children. He provided information for and co-authored Havelock Ellis's book 'Sexual Inversion.'


	8. 1884

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the long delay in updating. Part 9 is in the works.

Since First I Saw Your Face: Part 8

Karachi, at the D J Singh Government College.

**_Mycroft,_ writes Holmes, the steel nib of his pen sputtering angrily across the paper as he scratches out the code, _I regret to inform you that your agents in India are of sadly poor calibre. Why, pray, can we not employ Indian natives for this delicate and dangerous work, rather than these raw subalterns fresh out of England and still wet behind the ears? I would sooner have a tried and trusted man of the country than one of your imbecilic infants with no thought in their head but death or glory. Of glory there is none in this wretched task, which I hoped by now to have successfully concluded, and death is, alas, a too constant companion for comfort._**

**_As I mentioned in my last, it is entirely owing to the idiocy of some of your aforementioned infants that Moran has escaped, leaving behind one dead imbecile with his throat slashed, and your brother with a scar he will wear lifelong. I daresay a man may survive with only one kidney, but I would sooner have not attempted it: I am grateful therefore for J9 (who is a less-than-imbecilic man of the country and deserving of much more trust than his superiors place in him) who has ensured that I still have two._ **

**_I suppose I should also be grateful to you for finding me this place to convalesce in, but for heaven’s sake, could you think of no other alias? Professor James John? Why send me to a college, for all love: am I a teacher? Jackson, moreover, is a parvenu and deeply unfriendly to our kind: “non amo te, Sabidi”. I like him not, “et fieri sentio.” In any case, Dr Moses Jackson aside, before I elaborate further, as you request, upon the details of my unsuccessful rencontre with Colonel Moran, I must tell you that if you do not soon arrange my transport from Karachi to Bushire and thence to Shiraz, I may be too late to intercept him before more of your infants die. Moran is a killer in cold blood: neither pity nor remorse will stay his hand. And in Persia he has old friends, because of his father’s work there._ **

**_I thank you that you have at least managed to assure us of a more regular and confidential correspondence, since without it I would have no-one to whom to vent either my spleen or my increasing impatience to be done with this life of lies and espionage, but it is small comfort in my present state of impatience when you do not give me enough information about how my Watson does. More news, brother: let me have more news._ **

**Holmes lays down his pen. ‘ _Né spero i dolci dí tornino indietro, ma pur di male in peggio quel ch'avanza, et di mio corso ò già passato 'l mezzo,’_ he murmurs. His pocket Petrarch, battered, crumpled, bedraggled, is open by him, but he barely needs it, so often has he read those impassioned, sorrowful cries. He touches the blunted corner of the book surreptitiously, almost as a prayer, then answers the discreet tap on the door with a ‘come in’ spoken not in Sigerson’s distinctive accent, but in a slight, West Country burr. His ‘convalescence’ – although he has not truly had time to convalesce since Jibril stitched him back together again – is consisting of a week spent within the confines of the D J Singh Government college on the port city of Karachi as ‘Professor James John’, a visiting teacher of chemistry. Ostensibly he is there to assist the Principal in assessing the teaching in the science department. In reality, he is waiting for safe transport to the small port of Bushire, and thence to Shiraz, where he hopes to have a rendezvous, brokered by another agent, with Moran himself.**

**‘Professor John? You wished to see me?’**

**‘Dr Jackson,’ replies Holmes. He shifts carefully in his chair, trying to conceal the pain from the as-yet unhealed wound in his back, and offers a manila folder tied in pink tape. ‘I have completed my review of your establishment, and shall be happy to give you whatever help lies within my small power. You are doing admirable work here, Sir, most admirable.’**

**‘The standards are as yet insufficiently high,’ says Jackson, stiffly, ‘and we suffer much from our inability to sever ourselves from the University of Bombay. I believe we should endeavour largely to shake them off, and in these matters follow a line of our own. It is not certain that what is thought best for Bombay is also best for Sindhi students . . .’**

**Holmes, listening to and commenting on Jackson’s exposition of his plans and dreams for his college, mentally tallies what he sees – a tall, stalwart man, handsome, grave-faced and with a sombre, almost abrupt manner – with what he knows, but knows that Jackson does not know that he knows, about him _._ Eight years ago now, he thinks. Eight years. It has been so long.**

**_‘ . . . dear old Mo,’ says the shivering, sad-eyed, young man draped in Watson’s afghan and sipping brandy before the fire in 221B, ‘It is not surprising that he does not understand. He is such a splendid fellow, and so manly. Of course he thinks it is beastliness: ‘being spoony’ he calls it, and who can wonder? It is as alien to him as if I were to say that I loved my horse in such kind.’_ **

**_Watson grunts, pressing sticking plaster to the end of the bandage around the boy’s slender wrist. ‘There, that will do better now, my lad. I shall tape an oiled silk to it, and you must try not to wet it when you bathe. Mrs Hudson has all ready for you now: and you may borrow my clothes to return home in. You have given your friends quite a fright, disappearing like that for a week, but you are still alive at least.’_ **

**_‘Am I?’ The young man’s voice cracks. ‘He would not – said he could not countenance such an – an immoderate affection. That it could not be, would never be, that I must give it up, that we should never be friends, that if I vexed him by persisting, we must part, that it did not suit him to have me say such words . . . that I must throw the thought away. Must I live? Would it not be better if I had died?’_ **

**_‘No.’ Holmes places a hand on a thin shoulder, grips hard. ‘No, you must not think that. Who knows what you have yet to offer the world: you must not despair. Trust me, it is not the end. Grieve, but do not do away with yourself. Think, man, you love him still, do you not? Then if you cannot get what you want, learn to want what you have got. You would do better to move out, of course: it may not do to be living there – no,’ as the drooping figure shivers again. ‘You cannot: it will be torture. You were foolish to reveal your feelings: men such as – such as you are walk on a knife edge, and now more than ever. So you may not be able to remain. But be steadfast, live for yourself. And if that prospect does not please, at least live for him. Live to be of use to him, and who knows what may happen. Even if he never returns your affection, you may still be his friend, patient, unshaken, faithful.’_ **

**_‘Enough for the moment, Holmes.’ Watson checks him in decided fashion. ‘Into the bath with you, young man, before you chill any further; we do not want you with an inflammation of the lungs on top of all this turmoil. Jackson’s brother will be here anon: he has been quite frantic about you. As has Jackson: he sent by express to your parents enquiring after your whereabouts after you did not come home for days, and both Jacksons have had a great to-do covering this up. You must not disappear like this again, my friend: I understand why you did so, for your situation must have appeared to you to be quite intolerable, but men must be circumspect in times like this, not to bring suspicion on each other. And Holmes is right, you must move out, if not for your sake, then for his.’_ **

**_Later, after their guest has been collected by his friend’s brother, and, broken-hearted but resolved, gone to make what he can of his shattered hopes, Holmes turns to Watson as they sit by the fire._ **

**_‘You were brutal with him, Watson. For all that you told him you did not think his feelings wrong, you pushed him very hard at the last to leave his friend. I know I suggested it, but after, I thought I should not have done so, to deprive him of the comfort of his love’s company, at least.’_ **

**_‘I was pragmatic, Holmes, not brutal. The tide of opinion has turned against Greek affections, and he is in danger. If his friend turns against him, it is both of their reputations and their livelihoods in danger, and therefore from mere self-interest he is unlikely to do so, but others may interfere. And the poor boy will not heal with the reminder of his unrequited affections ever present with him.’_ **

**_‘You think not?’ Holmes turns away, makes a show of tidying some papers. ‘Do you not believe a man can live with an unanswered, unwanted love, Watson?’_ **

**_‘I did not say he could not live, Holmes. I said he could not heal. It is not all who learn to live with their wounds. He is sensitive, delicate, devoted: he may carry this to his grave. I feared to see him suffer more, constantly in the presence of the man he loves, unable to utter a word of that which suffocates him unuttered, and would choke him if spoken. It takes strength to live like that. He is yet young, and this is his first trial. He will have many, as inverts do: at least let this one be mitigated by distance. The boy, moreover, is transparent as glass: no dissembler he. He could not conceal an improper affection if his life depended on it. Poor lad, poor unhappy boy. I feel for him, and what his life must be.’._ **

**_‘I too compassionate him, for his friend is not only obdurate, but unfeeling. But yet again I hear you speak of inversion as if it were no great matter, Watson.’_ **

**_‘It is not, to me. I have told you before: Afghanistan taught me many things, and one was not to laugh at or scorn or reprove any kindness in that place of hatred and wounds and death. Any love, do you hear me, Holmes? I speak of love, not mere lust. The coupling of man and man in love and tenderness – and I have, although not seen such, of course, been aware that it existed, aye, and among my fellows – is less bestial in my eyes than the buying of innocent young girls by wealthy men, the prostitution of poverty-stricken children on our streets. Which is why, may God forgive me,’ Watson’s voice is grim, ‘why I supported Stead and Labouchère in the campaign to diminish their suffering. I did not expect Labouchère to turn of a sudden, and take aim at a completely different target. God curse the man: he is a vile thing: “beware of Labby,” as I have heard others repeat, “he talks to everybody, writes to everybody, and betrays everybody”, and I would that I had never thought him admirable. That poor, broken boy, Holmes: I could weep for it. He fled as one leprous, unclean, seeking who knows what pitiful oblivion. We were fortunate to find him. And there will be so many more, now that this damned bill has passed.’ He rose abruptly. ‘I am fatigued, my dear fellow, and by your leave, I will retire. No, don’t get up: you are comfortably snugged in there, and there is no need.’_ **

**‘ . . . and of course, the quality of teaching is not such as I would wish. But I shall root out slackness and incompetence, Professor John, and we shall soon come to rival Bombay and Madras. I have great hopes of my current crop of engineers: they are grand lads. I press them hard, and harry them a little, but one must do so to keep them up to the mark. There is no excuse for a man’s weakness, do you not think?’**

**‘Indeed, Dr Jackson, it is clear that you think so. With regard to your work, I will do what is in my small power to assist you. You still lack resources, Sir, and must be supplied. Perhaps if we were to repair to the laboratory, we might consider your needs in detail. I have some influence in England: we can obtain equipment for you.’**

**Holmes has no desire to help Jackson – he has no sympathy either with his views or his actions - but some return must be made for the sanctuary he has been granted at this Karachi staging post on his long journey home. Pacing slowly by his host, listening to this vigorous, powerful, self-assured man, four years younger than his own thirty-nine, Holmes feels old. He has no need to feign the greater age that his alias confesses to, for he is gaunt with pain, incapacity, fever and fatigue, and looks fifty. His hair is beginning to silver at the temples, and recede a little above them, and his eyes are deeply shadowed. He is weary beyond belief, and the knowledge of Watson’s grief sits heavy on his heart. ‘To return to sweeter days I cannot hope,’ he says, under his breath, the rough English harsher on his tongue than the slippery silk of Petrarch’s Italian. ‘but only to progress from bad to worse, and already half my days of life are done.’**

**_‘Thank you, Dr Watson, you have been kinder than I deserve. It was foolish of me – I did not mean to inconvenience anyone. It was only – it seems to me - that I have loved Mo for so long, ever since we were boys at Oxford together. And for so long, I did not understand what it meant. I had dreams – oh, that we might adventure together, go around the world as comrades. I did not know why or how I wanted – what I wanted, or what it meant. And when I understood – he had always been kind to me - I hoped he might understand too.’_ **

**_‘But he did not. I am sorry, my lad, for your heartache.’ Holmes, standing by the drawing room door, hears their voices receding down the stairs, as Watson shows their visitor out. ‘May you have strength to do what is needed.’_ **

**_There is a pause, then, ‘Dr Watson – do you – is there any hope for – for people like me to be happy? Do you know – anyone – I do not wish to ask but are you . . .’_ **

**_‘Mr Holmes and I are good friends.’ Does Holmes imagine it, or is Watson’s voice sad? ‘He is an ascetic, lad, and makes little of the softer emotions.’ Can Watson really believe that? Is it a polite fiction he tells himself? Has he seen nothing of Holmes’ heart? ‘We go on very well together, and I value his company above all: but we are colleagues, simply that. And now more than ever, my boy, you should not be asking questions like that. Labouchère’s addition to this Criminal Law Amendment Act has put us all under suspicion – all of us who share rooms with another fellow, that is.’ Holmes wonders at Watson’s use of ‘us’, and his hasty change of words. ‘Many things will change, I think, because of it.’_ **

**_“Yes. I am sorry.’_ **

**_‘It is no matter. Learn how to guard yourself, lad, and know that by doing so, you guard him. The law is against you – now more than ever before – but you must be brave. It was that which sent you running as well, was it not?’_ **

**_‘I had never thought that to love was criminal.’_ **

**_‘Love between those who agree, and consent to it in full faith and with knowing heart is not criminal, my boy. I do believe this, despite all. I do not believe you are a criminal. We must all wait . . .’ (Heavens, thinks Holmes, listening intently, he is counting himself in with them again: what is the man about?) ‘. . . for better times to come, and meanwhile live our lives as best we may.’_ **

**_‘I would have died for him, Dr Watson,’_ **

**_‘But that is not yours to choose, lad. You must learn to live for him instead.’_ **

**_After Watson, insisting that Holmes should not rise to bid him goodnight with their usual handclasp, has retired to bed, Holmes sits on, alone with the dying fire, contemplating Watson’s words. ‘Learn how to guard yourself,’ he had said, ‘and by doing so, to guard him . . . many things will change . . . has put us all under suspicion . . . you must learn to live for him, instead.’ He covers his face with his hands, and tries not to weep._ **

**‘Dr Jackson?’ One of the college servants, a salver in his hand, interrupts them as they open the laboratory door. ‘Sir, a messenger has come. There is a telegram from Bushire for Professor John, Sir, marked ‘most urgent’ so I thought to bring it at once.’**

 

*****

‘Watson,’ said I, laying my paste brush down in a convenient saucer, ‘this February fog is not going to clear miraculously between one breath and the next. You have sprung from your chair and paced to the window and back five times in as many minutes: pray are you afflicted by St Vitus, or is the newspaper so tedious that it cannot hold your attention for the space of an article? Admit it, my dear fellow, you are suffering from taedium vitae, and would be better for a change. What can I do to help? Will you walk, despite this vile weather – I swear we have not seen the sky for days, let alone the sun – or can I play for you, read to you, spar with you – what would you have? Or only tell me what is vexing you, and I shall at once endeavour to do away with your ennui - if it is within my small power.’

He had been frowning when I began my speech, but he laughed at its end, his eyes narrowing in mirth, then opening to mine, their blue gaze warm with affection.

‘You read me like a book, Holmes,’ His tone was both fond and rueful. ‘I am intolerably restless, I confess. It is this particular time of year perhaps, when it seems that winter will never end. I wonder how I can remain cooped up in a house any longer, submerged in this Stygian gloom, choked to death whenever I set foot outside the door, the very air grimed and unclean.’ His hand went to his collar and tugged, as if it were suffocating him. ‘I feel – constricted – caged. I am a bad subject for domestic life, I think: the army has given me a thirst for excitement. And we have had none for ages, or so it seems.’

‘There are murders a-plenty, but none worth note.’ I observed him narrowly, not liking the flush high on his cheekbones. ‘And I have nothing else in prospect for you, Watson, which is why I am engaged with my records. But having nothing in prospect here, it occurs to me that we could take ourselves elsewhere, if you were minded to. Unless of course it is my society of which you weary, and would sooner strike out on your own, and find your own adventure.’

‘Never that,’ he said, with an alacrity I found charming. ‘I do not weary of your society, Holmes, and I do not believe I ever will. The ease and comfort with which we live together – it is beyond all that I hoped for. Although,’ he added, looking around, ‘I speak of ease and comfort of the soul – a heart’s ease of fellowship, as it were. The body would, I confess, be more comfortable if it did not trip over quite so many papers.’ He was smiling: it was not a serious complaint. ‘Really, my dear man, could we not perhaps dispose of a few – a very few - of the less important ones?’

‘They are all important,’ I protested. ‘And I have them in a very particular order. It would not suit me at all to disturb them.’

‘Perhaps a slight rearrangement then?’ he asked. ‘It is only that I have a damned great bruise upon my shin, Holmes, from the box which you retrieved from the garret last week, deposited in the middle of our floor and warned me against touching, since it was to be of immediate use. I could not see it in the dark last night, with the moon hidden behind clouds, and met it unexpectedly when I came downstairs.’

‘That is entirely your own fault: what were you doing prowling the drawing-room by owl-light? Watson, were you unable to sleep? Was it the dreams again? You know you have only to call me if you had need of me. I thought you understood that.’

‘The wind moaned so,’ he said. His tone was tight, and his gaze averted now. ‘I did not wish to wake you: it was as bad as I have ever known – or worse, perhaps. And you were deeply asleep, so I would not disturb that small miracle.’

‘You should have roused me - I am always glad of your company. We might have read together or I could have played you back to sleep. I was only dozing.’

‘You were snoring, Holmes.’

‘Watson, I do not snore.’

‘If you say so, my dear Holmes. Although it sounded remarkably like, unless some stertorous and deep-breathed creature of the abyss had usurped your bed. It was almost cetacean in character, indeed.’ His mouth was quirked in a faint smile.

‘Watson,’ I was half minded to argue the point with him, for I do not, I most decidedly do not, snore, but he put up a hand, conceding.

‘Very well, it was wholly my imagination then, my dear fellow. But touching this wretched box, Holmes, can we really not at least push it to one side?’

‘It contains an interesting case about which I intended to tell you – you have complained of being short of copy of late, and I thought it might serve your purpose. But if you do not care to hear it, then I will remove box and papers together.’

‘Of course I care to hear it. It is before I met you, obviously. Do tell me, Holmes. Take my mind away from darkness, I beg you. The dreams were evil last night,’ he rose and strode to the window again. ‘Sometimes I think I will never be free of them. It is a good thing I have no – no bedfellow - for I could not in all conscience burden another with my restlessness. And this dream - it was the same, yet different, and – and I cannot shake it off even in daylight: it lingers with me and will not go.’

I saw him shiver, and moved to the window to stand by him, slipping my hand into his arm as if we were walking together. ‘Do you wish to tell me?’

‘It was the battlefield. I was not shot, but searching among the bodies of the dead. There were many I recognised whom I knew to be dead, many lying dead whom my conscious mind knew to be alive. That I have dreamed before: it was nothing out of the ordinary. But this time, I knew I was searching for one, one man in particular; I did not know for whom. But when I found him, then I knew it was he I had looked for, searched for, hunted for with increasing desperation. And when I found him, he was dead. My companion – my friend - gazed at the sky, sightless, solemn, and his eyes were wet, as if he had wept.’ He was shivering again, and I touched his wrist, surreptitiously feeling the pulse, wondering if he was to have a relapse of the fever.

‘Was it someone you knew?’ I pressed his arm. ‘Someone you had failed to save?’ I knew that his failures, as he called them, haunted his sleep: I had heard him call out so often, I could even say the names of some of them. ‘My dear Watson, I am so very sorry. You should have woken me.’

‘I did not dare.’ He turned away as if ashamed. ‘It was you, Holmes. It was you I was looking for among the dead. I – I woke, and came downstairs, and to begin with, I thought I could not – could not go to find you, did not dare, in case my dream were true.’ His voice roughened and he dashed angrily at his eyes with his free hand. ‘Forgive me, this is morbid sentimentality. I know not whence it is sprung nor why. In any case, I was glad to hear - ’ he scrubbed at his eyes with his sleeve again, but his mouth curved in a wry smile – ‘ I was glad to hear whatever inhabitant of the deep was making the rhythmical noises emanating from your room. Now tell me you think it terribly missish of me to be so affected by what was a mere fancy of the night, and that I should have more courage.’

‘If I were to accuse you of lack of courage, I would have to own to it myself, Watson, I told him, ‘for I have bad dreams myself, dreams of being pursued by some nameless horror, of running through quicksand to escape a relentless Nemesis. I suspect you are one of many who suffer after war, whereas I – I suffer after – other events. But there is nothing to be ashamed of: we are not masters of our conscious minds, and perhaps it is better so. Perhaps our dreams allow us to understand our demons of each day.’

‘Perhaps.’ He leaned closer for a brief second. ‘Anyway, I was glad you were alive, old chap, snoring or not. It was a great relief to me, despite barking my shin on the box. But it has left a shadow, as such dreams do.  Will you tell me your tale over a luncheon now, and harp my melancholy away, as David did for Saul?’

‘I will do better than that,’ I said, for I hated to see him this miserable, low in spirits, fevered, and beset by his night terrors. He needed diversion, and I would supply it whether he would or no. ‘I shall send old Musgrave a telegram, and propose that we should visit on the morrow: then I can tell you the tale in its setting, and with its protagonist to add verisimilitude to my narrative. Musgrave has a superb library, too. And an even more impressive cellar. Of wines, I mean, not indeed that cellar where the event took place.’

‘The event! You intrigue me, Holmes. I should not take leave of the hospital,’ He sounded doubtful, but I could see that he was tempted. ‘I have much to do.’

‘You make too much of that much to do. Come, Watson, you will do better for a week’s repose in the country. You have shivered at least twice in the last few minutes, your flush is hectic, and Mrs Hudson will be distressed if you have a relapse. Admit that you do not feel well. Musgrave keeps bachelor hall: we shall not be under any constraint, and you may cosset yourself back into health to the accompaniment of a story you have never heard the like of before. Go to oblige me if you will not go for yourself, my dear fellow,’ I added, knowing that he would not oppose me in this at least. ‘I am weary of the weather too, and for once, London palls: what good is it to me to sit waiting for a fly to twitch the strings of my web and bring me running to a case when not one thread of that web can be seen a hand’s breadth in front of one’s nose? Let us go to the country, Watson, and hope the change of scene means an end to the dreams for a while. I am sorry I was so inconsiderate as to die in yours. I confess that had I dreamed that you had died, old chap, I should be distressed indeed.’

*****

‘So tell me about your friend, Musgrave,’ said Watson, the following morning.

We were travelling in a closed carriage, for a sleety, steady rain had set in overnight, and now streamed down the panes, obscuring our views of the Buckinghamshire countryside. I had spent the previous day ensuring that he remained warm and comfortable in our own home. We had gone through the documents in the chest, so that I could entertain him with stories, and I had allowed him to make notes on some old cases before reluctantly consenting to tidying some of my piles of paper away – Watson having suggested an improved way of sorting and filing them.

(I did not believe it more efficacious than mine, but consented to please him. I would have done anything to please him that day, for several times I looked up to find his eyes fixed on me with a wistful affection that I am sure he did not mean to show, and more than once he stretched out a hand to touch my arm or shoulder, as if to assure himself of my continued reality or presence. I would have given my all to take him into my arms and care for him, or to lay my head on his shoulder and rest in his embrace, and yet I could not. I dared not, for what would become of us if I erred? Better my metaphorical dinner of herbs and contentment therewith, as it said in the Bible, than a fat ox, and dissension in the house, or worse, the downfall of the house. So I refrained myself, though it cost me dear; _“cœur serré”_ and my shameful body firmly kept under.)

Later, Mrs Hudson had provided us with a veritable feast for dinner, and afterwards I had played him to sleep. Several times in the night I had crept barefoot up the stairs, to listen, to see if he dreamed, but his sleep was peaceful, and in the morning he looked less weary and ill, so we were packed and away betimes.

‘He was nothing but an acquaintance at university – as you know, I had no friends there save the one, and Musgrave was not a man of my year after all, being in his last year while I was in my first – but I remember him coming to shake my hand after one of my more public deductions – it was about who had stolen the Master’s silver repeater, as I recall – and declare that he had never heard the like. Then later, when he had his own trouble, he telegraphed me and asked for my assistance. I suppose you could say that he was my first real case.’

‘I look forward to meeting him and hearing the story then.’ He reached to touch my sleeve. ‘I know you do not like to be thanked for your kindness, but you must allow me to do so, my dear Holmes. I was near falling into the blackest melancholy, but I am feeling much better now.’

I observed him carefully. ‘You are looking better. A rest, some clean air, and quiet nights, and you will be wholly well. Your nervous system and your physical state are intimately connected, Watson: one influences the other. I have observed this often. In fact, I am surprised that you, an excellent physician, do not recognise it, for you must have seen it in others.’

He sighed. ‘I do. I have. I find it shameful – unmanly. I was never thus before the war, but since then I do not seem able to control it. It is not just the dreams, of course, but other things as well. And you are correct, I have observed it in many soldiers before – not just the physical sequelae of wounds, but difficulty sleeping, digestive issues, aversion to noise, a hand that trembles or a leg that will not stay its weight, an increased nervousness, almost a febrility of disposition. The army does not recognise it of course. It cannot, or what would become of discipline? It has but one answer to such issues, and that is to shoot the coward who displays them, who quails at battle, or who deserts, unable to bear the strain.’

‘Then the army is an ass. It would do better to honour its soldiers’ service by healing and helping them. I am not interested in the army in general, however, but in my own particular Captain and Doctor. Tell me, Watson, if another man were to come to you with your symptoms, what would you recommend?’

‘Kindness, gentleness and patience, both from and with others, and to oneself, I suppose. Other than that, there is little that can be done. Pray do not be angry with me, Holmes. I cannot help that I feel ashamed of my weakness. I fight – I try to be armed at all points against it – but it is a cunning and relentless enemy.’

‘I am not angry. I am trying to persuade you to extend that same kindness and consideration to yourself that I have seen you offer to others. Logic dictates that you should do so, my dear friend: succumb to its inexorable command.’

He laughed then, and my heart lifted, for I knew he had understood me. ‘God forbid I ever dispute your reasoning, Holmes, you are the most excellent logician. But a false one too, because you seek to influence me with cold reason, when your voice and your actions speak most cogently of warmth and friendship, as is evidenced by this pleasure trip you have enticed me to take. Enough of me: tell me more of our host, and what I may expect. Is he a reading man, a sporting man? What like is he?’

‘He was an historian at University. He comes from an old family, of which he is proud. But I will tell you more of Musgrave when I have told you the story: there is that in it which I cannot reveal without spoiling the dénouement of my tale, and I do not wish to do that. But I beg that when I tell you, you will refrain from any censure of the – other protagonist, in front of Musgrave. And I will tell you why that is later too, when we are more private together. Like many of these affairs, part can be drawn out for public consumption, and part must remain sub rosa.’

‘Of course I can be discreet, Holmes. Is that the house, there, through the trees? It is a handsome place, and these grounds are delightful – or would be in sunshine.’

I was intrigued, I confess, to see how the several years since I had seen Musgrave had treated him. We had corresponded in a desultory fashion, as men do, but I knew little of his present living arrangements, other than the one I had been instrumental in arranging. He met us at the gate, all expansive smiles and eagerness – there had always been something boyish about him, and there was still, although his hair was prematurely grey, and his shoulders stooped -  and escorted us into the hall, where his butler, Stark, a burly man of fifty with an authoritative mien and a kind eye, relieved of us coats and cases. Stark was, I thought to myself, observing him as he brought coffee while Musgrave settled Watson in a chair by the fireside, unlikely to be a thief, a philanderer and a fence as Brunton had been: it was to be hoped that whatever his other vices, he was, as he had been warranted to be, not a blackmailer.

We passed the day very pleasantly together, but within doors, for the rain would not let up. My Watson and Musgrave played billiards together after luncheon while I amused myself with some of the rarer incunabula in the library. One book, indeed, I was most tempted by - a copy of Dallington’s 1592 translation of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, or the Strife of Love in a Dream. I was engaged in conning over the exquisite woodcuts, and thinking how very inferior were those of our present day illustrators, when Watson came to perch on the arm of my chair.

‘Have a care,’ I warned him, ‘It will not do to crumple these pages. Look, did you ever see anything more beautifully done?’

‘No, indeed, Holmes, it is a wonder of a book. This is a magnificent library, a joy to the intellect and the eye, and I would be more than happy to spend some hours here with you. Our host has soundly thrashed me at the game, by the way: I am woefully out of practice. He is gone now about some business with his bailiff, and desired me to tell you to ring if you required anything – tea, or whatever – before his return. What an agreeable man he is, Holmes! He has been telling me of his memories of you at college. I did not know you were such an expert at the noble arts of sword and fisticuffs. I have never seen you fight in a contest.’

‘I rarely have cause now, other than in a street battle. I was accounted good at the sport once, but like you with billiards, I am woefully out of practice. Why do you mention it – do you wish to see me fight?’

‘Of course not: I would not see you hurt. I was only intrigued.’ He yawned. ‘Holmes, should you object if I were to retire for a nap? I do not know how it is – the country air, or that excellent luncheon, or Musgrave’s fine burgundy – but I am near falling asleep where I sit.’

‘Then by all means seek your bed; you will be better in it than drowsing on the sofa and waking with a crick in your neck. I shall do very well here for a while. Go, Watson, and sleep.’

He smiled, clasped my shoulder warmly, and was gone. I lay back in my chair, the book open in my lap. Our rooms adjoined, upstairs. He would close his door behind him, unfasten his collar – I must remind him to wear an Ascot on the morrow, no need to stand on ceremony here – and his cuffs, and lay them aside. He would disrobe, at least in part, unlacing his shoes, stripping his socks, the olive-toned tweed trousers he affected for country wear, and perhaps even his drawers. His shirt would be loosened at the neck, revealing the little dip at the base of his throat. He would lie down, curled on his side as I had often seen him. He slept protecting himself, pillows tucked close against his back, his knees drawn up, his elbows folded tight into his belly, one hand beneath the pillow where, I knew, he no longer kept a gun as he had in the army, lest he should use it, dream-thralled, to someone’s harm.

I could go to him now, I thought, and say, ‘Watson, let me sleep with you. Turn to me, let me be your solace, your comfort. I know nothing, but for you I would learn, do, offer, all.’ I could fit my body to the curve of his, protecting his back, watch him sleeping as, waking, he watched me. Perhaps after sleep, loosened from the bonds of fear, he might turn to me, accepting, trusting, and we might embrace, our hands seeking each other’s bodies, tenderly exploring flank and hip and groin, our mouths, lip to lip, exchanging breath that would hitch and sob, speed and falter, become broken, ecstatic, triumphant . . . sated, sweet . . . then murmur praise, love, joy in vows and promises that we would be alone no longer, but a conjoined creature, of one mind, one body, one heart, coupled, inseparable . . .

‘Holmes, are you falling asleep over that book?’ Musgrave was standing in the door of the library. ‘I am done with business for the moment and have rung for tea. What are you reading there? Oh, it is my ‘Strife of Love in a Dream’ – I have not picked that up in an age. What a pleasant fellow your soldier friend is, by the by; he has a fund of excellent stories, and I do not know when I have last been so entertained. Have you known him long?’

‘We have shared rooms for three years.’ I moved a newspaper onto my lap and put the book on top of it. My reverie had produced certain stirrings, and I cursed poor Musgrave internally for his inopportune arrival. ‘We were introduced by a mutual acquaintance, and quickly came to terms. He was in need of quiet, and comfortable accommodation – he was wounded in honourable service in the late campaign in Afghanistan – and I in need of someone to share the expense of lodging, so it has fallen out very happily indeed. His health is still precarious, however, and he was in sad want of country air, so I am grateful to you, Musgrave, for accommodating us.’

‘Not at all, not at all,’ He moved to the window to toy nervously with the curtain. ‘You could ask far more of me than a trifling visit, Holmes: I have never forgotten what you did for me over that business of the Ritual, and how good you were to me in the dreadful aftermath. Our lives lie in different places, but I have the kindest remembrance of you, you must know that. I have never been more shocked than when Brunton – well, the man is dead, God mend him. I do not know how I would have gone on without your support.’ He paused.

‘I have not told Watson more than that I assisted you with a case,’ I told him, for I could see that he was anxious, and wanting to ask one of those questions it was better not to voice aloud. ‘I thought to tell him the historical aspects, and perhaps take him over the ground and the process of our investigation, if you did not object. I need not tell him all, of course, or of the more personal betrayal. But he is a safe man, kind, generous and very accepting of others. His travel abroad has taught him much about the differences between other – schools of belief – and your own.’

‘If you warrant him safe, I have no concerns,’ he said. ‘I am better situated now, of course, thanks to you, and in any case, I live very much retired.’

It was thanks to Mycroft and the Diogenes that he was better, and more safely situated, poor man, but I did not tell him that, of course. ‘Then perhaps we might venture on the morrow to retrace the steps of our investigation. It is always a pleasure to show Watson these things: he has a writer’s eye and ear for them.’

‘Has he indeed?’ Musgrave turned to me. ‘Then let us show him the lie of the land. It is a curious old history, that of the Ritual, and I am proud of it, and of the family’s connection to the late lamented royal martyr: I should not object to see it in story form. Suitably amended, of course.’

‘Of course,’ I nodded in response to his raised eyebrow. ‘You need have no fear, Musgrave, he is the soul of discretion. And here is our tea.’

*****

The following day we re-enacted the events that had brought me to Hurlstone Hall in the first place, beguiling Watson step by step through the arcane family rite, our discovery of its meaning, the eventual realisation of what Brunton had been about, the horrific dénouement and inevitable sad ending. He listened, rapt, as we laid it out for his amusement: Musgrave’s discovery of Brunton in the library, tampering with his papers, the dismissal and plea for reprieve, in part granted, the man’s disappearance followed by that of poor Rachel, and my solving both Ritual and case together. His story-teller’s heart was stirred, that much was clear, but so too was his compassion. He saw before I did that Musgrave was much affected by revisiting the cellar where Brunton had been found dead, and insisted, after we had returned to the house at the end of our ‘investigation’ that he should take a stiff glass of brandy, ‘for I do not like your colour at all, Musgrave, and it will not do to have you swooning away. Ring for your man, if you please, and let us have tea as well, and perhaps a bite to eat to steady you, and settle your nerves.’

The tea was not brought by the little maid – a village child, innocent as the day about the unconventional household she worked in – but by Stark, who demonstrated a fatherly, if restrained attention to his young master, and demanded of Watson if it would be necessary for him to call the apothecary and procure a composing draught. This my doctor declined, saying that it was the merest temporary issue, but Musgrave remained subdued for the rest of the day. He retired early, pleading indisposition, and leaving Watson and myself in undisputed possession of his library.

For a while we smoked and read in silence, I cherishing an exquisite volume of Petrarch, octavo, calf-bound, and adorned with tooled and gilded bay leaves; Watson fathoms deep in a bound copy of some old Annales de Chimie et de Physique, from which he looked up at intervals to demand that I translate a word for him. He was reading about Pelletier and Caventou’s extractions of certain pure vegetable alkaloids, and when I asked, maintained that it was so he might be able to distinguish between them should we ever meet them in a case. Personally, I wondered if he were planning to use one on me, and said as much, at which he laughed, and replied that it was sadly tempting at times, but on the whole he thought he had very much better not.

‘I thought you did not know French at all,’ I challenged him. ‘You would not speak it to Dupré when we had to do with him last year, nor the year before that. Yet now I find you reading it. Your mendacity knows no bounds, Watson. I am put out, and require an explanation.’

‘I can make shift to understand the gist of it if the subject be scientific or medical, not literary French. The technical words are similar, give or take a vowel or two and your preposterous French endings, and of course that part of it is in Latin helps, so I stumble along, re-reading and refining bit by bit. I tried once to read the Count of Monte Cristo in the original, but failed miserably for want of common vocabulary, and the only English translation I could come by seemed poorly written, so I gave it up. And I cannot speak French at all other than, like Chaucer’s Prioress, ‘after the school of Stratford-Atte-Bowe’. I was ill-taught at school, and then after – well you know about that now. So it is easier to say that I speak it not at all, rather than open my mouth, utter rank idiocies, and expose myself as an illiterate.’

‘Did you enjoy Monte Cristo?’ I asked him. ‘I have read it in the original, and found it most intriguing. You mention it of course, your mind flew to it, because the poison Madame de Villefort employs to kill old Noirtier and with which she instead kills the servant, Barrois, is brucine, which you have just read was extracted in its pure state by Caventou and Pelletier two decades or so before Dumas wrote his masterpiece. Watson, my dear fellow, the English translations of the book which you will have come across are very much inferior to the original, and, indeed, omit several fascinating and enlightening passages. Would it please you if we were to read it together, in the French, and I to translate as we go along? Two objectives might thus be achieved, the amelioration of your French, and our shared enjoyment of the book. It is a fascinating study: the tale of a man sorely wronged, strangely released from his confinement, motivated by a revenge which an unexpected and immense fortune empowers him to carry out, thinking himself God’s avenger, and softened, redeemed, at the end, by an unexpected love. I have perused it several times, and each time found something new, something charming: I would much enjoy discovering it afresh with a new reader.’

And it will mean we can sit together, I thought. Perhaps we might touch

He assented enthusiastically, casting his bound papers aside to move to the indexed library record, an imposing loose-leaf leather folio in which Musgraves past had inscribed their purchases in alphabetical order. ‘If Musgrave has a copy in French, we might begin now, do you not think, Holmes? I should like that very much. Let me see -  here’s D . . . Dallington – that was a fascinating book you had there, I should like to peruse it after you have finished with it . . . Dante, the divine poet, incomparable. My mother had Cary’s translation, and would read it often. I tried Bannerman’s but it was an affront to the ear: now I have that of William Rossetti, the brother to our painter, and his poet sister. I am too old to learn the Italian for it, I fear. Daudet: his new Tartarin de Tarascon: would you read that with me? Descartes – I do not suppose I might persuade you to enlighten me as to the Discours de la Methode? Dickens, of course. He cannot write women: they are saints or caricatures. Doctor John Donne – I like his work, do you? Though it is not fashionable to say so, of course, and it is regarded as difficult: what did Samuel Johnson say of it? “The most obscure, no, the most heterogeneous ideas are chained by violence together” -  but then I do not reckon much to Johnson . . . now: Dumas, fils, La Dame aux Camellias: I would enjoy that too, would not you? Dumas, père - aha, we are in luck!’

‘Watson,’ I said. I was quite stunned by his cascade of literary references – I knew him to be an avid reader, as all good writers must be, but I had not comprehended until now how dearly he loved literature, nor perhaps, how much he must have missed access to books because of his poverty. I had certainly never seen him revel as he was revelling now, pouncing on each discovery with positive glee. ‘Watson, do you want to – should we move to the - ’

‘I shall sit by you,’ he declared, as he returned to my side, brandishing the book with an air of triumph, ‘and that way I can con the page as you read. Perhaps it will make it easier to pick up a few words. By the way, Holmes, do I take it that Musgrave was somewhat more attached to Brunton than a man usually is to his servant? Of course that is why he was so upset at Brunton’s treachery, both with treasure and with girl. And that good man Stark is the replacement?’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow at my no doubt dropped jaw. ‘My dear fellow, real attachment is always visible on the face of one who – cares - when the object of their attention is sick. A doctor must remark this many, many times. I am no detective as are you, but I have officiated at enough sickbeds to see that, at least. And its reverse, alas,’ he added, frowning.

‘Brunton had begun to add blackmail to his other undesirable activities,’ I admitted, rather weakly. ‘In truth, it was a mercy that his demise came when it did: his grip would only have tightened, and I believe Musgrave, when it came to it, would have found it impossible to be rid of him. As it was, the double shock of finding out about the – ah - historical, and the, um, personal treachery quite overset him.’

‘I hope he is well served now, in that case,’ commented Watson. ‘Here, take the book, and I will pour us a brandy and soda each. Poor gentle, lonely soul, he is in sad need of compassion and care, that much is plain.’

‘Stark was – carefully chosen.’ I laid aside my Petrarch, not without some regret, and took up the Dumas. ‘Musgrave was orphaned young, is of a, of a, ah, nervous, and, and somewhat, ah, yielding disposition, and wants, needs um, a strong and guiding hand in certain areas. And a kindly one.’

‘You imply that he is a devotee of the English vice? It is strange how many are: it has never held any charm for me, however. I hope Stark is careful, although observing them, I suspect he is.’ Watson placed my glass on the end table, then sank down onto the sofa next to me with a sigh part amusement, part exasperation. ‘Oh Holmes, do not, I pray you, look so shocked: you might be a maiden aunt with that prim expression. I went to an English public school, a surgeon’s training college, and was in the army: I have been reminding you of this now for three years and also that there is nothing new to me under the sun.’ He leaned into me, the lightest press of his side against mine and angled the book so it rested across our knees. ‘There, I will see the words clear now. Shall we begin, my dear fellow? The translation I read was badly enough worded to make me certain that the French itself could not be so, given the reputation of the author. I am eager to be proven correct.’ He laid his hand over mine, and turned the page. ‘Will you read for me, Holmes?’

_‘Le 24 février 1815, la vigie de Notre-Dame de la Garde signala le trois-mâts le Pharaon, venant de Smyrne, Trieste et Naples,’_ I began, my nerves a-quiver. His free arm lay along the back of the sofa. I dared to lean into it, and he allowed his hand to rest tenderly on my shoulder, pressed it, and stilled.

‘Yes, yes, that is right, that is comfortable and friendly. Go on,’ he said, ‘read a couple of sentences and then translate, if you would be so good. I love to hear how you switch between the languages with such ease. Your French well-spoken and accented is the most mellifluous of languages.’ I felt him sigh, a long, luxurious, relieved sigh, and relax a little more against me. ‘I do thank you: this is so very kind of you to indulge me, my dear Holmes.’

_‘Comme d'habitude, un pilote côtier partit aussitôt du port, rasa le château d'If, et alla aborder le navire entre le cap de Morgion et l'île de Ron . . ._ on the 24th February 1815, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-masted ship, Pharaon, hailing from Smyrna, Trieste and Naples. As usual, a pilot vessel put off immediately to meet her, rounded the Château d’If, and went aboard the boat between Cape Morgion, and the Île de Ron . . .’

“If it were now to die,” I thought, as I paused for breath, my mind leaping to a completely different writer, “If it were now to die, ‘twere now to be most happy, for my soul hath her content so absolute” . . . oh, John, John. I do so love you.

*****

We passed an agreeable week at Hurlstone. We were only alone together one other evening, when Musgrave again ‘retired early’ and Watson made haste to suggest the sofa, and another session with Dumas. Again I bathed in his warmth, his sturdy presence close at my side, the lamp-light ticking his down-dropped eyelashes with gold, the scent of him, his soft-drawn breath, his arm around my shoulders and the occasional touch of his hand on mine as he turned the page. And after we had returned home from Hurlstone it became an accepted thing that we should sit on the sofa and read, rather than in our separate armchairs. I startled and bit my tongue the first time, Mrs Hudson walked in and caught us out thus close together, but she made no remark, only smiled a little.

A week later a new, and larger afghan, knitted in thick wool of a deep, lapis blue appeared on the sofa, and under its kindly warmth through the last days of a bitter cold February and the first week of March, we progressed with poor Dantès to his examination before de Villefort, the villainous Procureur du Roi. We were, in fact, sitting together reading one evening when Mrs Hudson tapped on the door and announced Lestrade, and it was with some reluctance that Watson returned to his own chair, sighing, and casting an annoyed glance at the door.

Lestrade was unusually ill at ease when he came in, and stood twisting his hat in his hands until I bid him say what he had to. During an interminable, vertiginous moment, I wondered if some evil suspicion of sodomy had arisen to haunt us, but it soon became apparent that what ailed him was wounded professional amour-propre, and no more than that.

‘It’s a strange thing, Mr Holmes,’ he began, ‘that whereas I would normally come to you off my own bat, so to speak, in this instance, I have been directed to involve you in an investigation. And I cannot for the life of me tell exactly whence that direction arises, and why. Or rather, I know why – it is the prettiest little problem in some ways, and just the sort of thing for you – but I do not like to be a mere messenger, see and not to know who is properly in the driving seat. It does not suit me at all, to tell you the truth.’

‘It does not suit me either, Lestrade, as you must know if you know me at all, man. I am no puppet to be moved at any man’s whim. Pray, what is the problem, and what am I requested to do? For I tell you now that with such a beginning I will have nothing to do with it, if I like it not.’

His glance flicked to Watson, and I shook my head.

‘No, Lestrade, you will either discuss it with both of us or neither. I do not stir one step in this matter without my associate: I must have a trustworthy friend at my side.’ I took pity on him then, for I had never seen him look so perplexed. ‘Come, let us be at ease, we have worked together for some time now. Take a glass of wine with us, and tell me. If you wish me to advise you unofficially, I will. It is not about the Earl of Euston’s affair is it? For if it is, I tell you I will not be party to his quest for a divorce: he made his marital bed when he took up with Kate Walsh, and must lie in it. Or not, of course, as the case undoubtedly is that he does not, just as neither does she. He is no saint, Euston.’

Lestrade had laid aside coat and hat, and chuckled as he accepted a glass of wine from Watson. ‘Trust you, Mr Holmes, to be fly to the time of day. I dare swear you have ears in all of London: you hear things sooner than I. Our friend Shinwell Johnson is it, this time? Through Miss Kitty?’

‘Hush, it will not do to mention his name. Or hers, poor girl. Johnson abhors your kind, Lestrade: if he knew you knew of him, I would not be able to keep him. Suffice it to say that the other Kitty - Kate – the Countess of Euston, I should say – has a fondness for her former sisters in . . . trade, and is not the most discreet of personages. It is not much blown about yet, is it, the proposed divorce? I see nothing in the press to date.’

‘It will be bruited abroad soon enough, Mr Holmes. Your very good health, Sir, and yours, Dr Watson.’ He drained his glass. I winced – it was not thus one should treat a fine claret – but nodded to Watson to refill it. I had rarely known Lestrade drink on duty: an indication, perhaps of how grave the matter was on which he sought my advice. He drank again, and then set the glass down.

‘I will have to ask you to cast your mind back several years, Mr Holmes. To the year ‘77, to be precise. You were unknown to us at that time, Sir.’

‘I was.’ I suppressed a shiver. In the year 1877 I had been an unhappy, lonely young man, three years down from a university I had left in disgrace, eking out a sparse existence on hack detective work, and in my too copious spare time, sitting amid the nude kouroi and marble athletes in the British Museum attempting to understand the depths of my own perverse nature. ‘And Watson was in the army, were you not, my dear fellow?’

‘In India. I had come out of Netley, and was still in the Fusiliers: I had not yet transferred to Afghanistan. We knew little of London news then, so I cannot cast my mind back as Holmes can.’ Watson moved to the fireplace and rang the bell. ‘You look weary, Lestrade, and I daresay you have not eaten. I shall see if Mrs Hudson would be kind enough to provide us with a small cold collation, then we can discuss whatever troubles you in comfort.’

‘That is good of you, Dr Watson. You are perhaps aware, then, Mr Holmes, of the so-called ‘Trial of the Detectives’ of that year? The de Goncourt fraud case?’

‘Indeed.’ I glanced at Watson, who shook his head. ‘You are not? I will explain it in detail later, but for now, all you need to know is that the perpetrator of the de Goncourt fraud, that fraud once discovered, appeared continually to be one step ahead of the police on his trail: this was because certain detectives at the very highest level were taking bribes to inform him in advance of the moves against him. Those detectives themselves came to trial, and were ejected ignominiously from the force. Do not wince, Lestrade: I cast no aspersions upon you. It was in a chastened and thoroughly reformed Criminal Investigation Department that you rose to your well-deserved position.’

‘I have never heard of either case – ah, Mrs Hudson, I was going to ask you, but I see you have anticipated our every want: you are a treasure. Pray let me take the tray from you. There are your pasties, I see, and a pork pie. How kind you are to us.’

‘Very kind of you, Mrs Hudson,’ uttered Lestrade, rubbing his hands together and fixing his eyes on the piled viands. ‘We are most grateful. Pasties and pie, well, well, how delightful. Cold beef too! Pickles! And is that a Cheshire cheese?’

‘It does not take too much common sense to understand that when the Inspector visits at this time, and does not leave immediately with you and Mr Holmes hot on his heels, a supper will be required, Sir. I will be telling the girl to go to bed, and retiring myself shortly, so if there is anything else you need, Dr Watson, you may go to get it yourself. There is a blanket on the landing should the Inspector be staying the night on your sofa, Mr Holmes. Now, Doctor, I leave it to you to see that the house is secure, and not on any account to allow Mr Holmes or Mr Lestrade into my kitchen. Goodnight, gentlemen.’

‘She is truly a treasure,’ said Lestrade, through a bite of pasty, to the sound of her retreating footstep on the stair. ‘Mr Holmes, you are a fortunate man. Were I to demand food at this hour at home, I would never hear the last of it.’ He sighed. ‘Marriage has many pains.’

‘I am sure your wife is an excellent woman, Lestrade,’ replied Watson, diplomatically, carving the man five slices of beef onto a plate and adding two more pasties and a dollop of mustard. (How he could forget the tirade Mrs Lestrade had once directed at him, I knew not: she had an evil tongue.) ‘And you are blessed with children, are you not? I envy you, I confess.’

‘Not to say blessed, exactly,’ replied Lestrade, ‘Thank you, Dr Watson, just a touch of that pie – a little more, perhaps, and some of that fine-looking cheese, ‘I have four hopeful daughters and three strong sons, besides our little Polly, who does not thrive so well, poor mite, but how they do wear out linen and shoe leather to be sure! And eat! There is no keeping them in bread, I assure you. Except poor Polly, that is. Well, my wife is a neat woman, and clean, and an excellent manager. Perhaps she is not too tender with the children, but to spare the rod is to spoil the child, as my father was used to say. But this is all by the by - ’

‘It is,’ I interjected. ‘It is all very much by the by. No, Watson, I want nothing, but do you eat: I am sure you went hungry at the hospital, yet you made a poor dinner.  Oh very well, if I must, I must. A corner of pasty then; of yours, if you please.

‘You will have your little joke, Mr Holmes.’ Lestrade swallowed a huge mouthful of beef and came abruptly to the point. ‘Of those former disgraced detectives, it is Meiklejohn we have to do with.’

‘Meiklejohn!’ I put the piece of pasty aside untasted. ‘I know of him, and so do my informants. Most will have nothing to do with him: do not raise your hopes there. I thought he was in Dublin, or Scotland. My people know him as a scoundrel: they say better an honest rogue than a policeman corrupted.’

‘He calls himself a private detective now. No, Mr Holmes, he is sniffing around here, the dirty dog. He has been seen around the Criterion bar, and in the areas – hmmm – ah – in the – umm, in short where those gentlemen of a certain persuasion live. In Eaton Square, for example. But he has been crossing frequently between here and Dublin, over the winter, on whatever nefarious purposes – he has been an extortionist for years, you know, was as a detective, even before he was found out -  and it has been suggested to me that you might be – with your network of lads – you might be, in short, the person to find out what he was about. It is the Dublin connection that we think very curious, Mr Holmes, very curious indeed. But the man is clever: he is accustomed to covering his traces. So it was suggested that you, as another private detective - ’

‘I am a consulting detective, not a private investigator of petty men’s journeys. By whom, Lestrade, by whom was this given you? Come, you must have more information than this. I will not stir, I tell you, unless I know what you do.’

‘All I can tell you, Sir, is that I was called earlier today into the office of Mr Williamson, who heads the new Irish Special Branch. Mr Adolphus Williamson. And he told me of concerns that this Meiklejohn was investigating on his own account, or paid by a third party. That he was not working for the Constabulary, not over there, nor here, and that someone was, it appeared, fishing for information, and that his actions might bring the Establishment into disrepute.

‘I know of Dolly Williamson. He was one of those much criticised during the investigation into Meiklejohn, as it appeared he had no control of his staff. His honesty, however was never in question. This is intriguing: go on.’

‘There was another gentleman there, Mr Holmes, who stood with his face to the window throughout, half-hidden by the drape. A tall gentleman, much of your height, or a little taller, but larger, heavier built.’

‘Ah, was there, indeed? Describe him, Lestrade: what like was he? Hair? Voice? Did he speak? Did you see his face, hear him? Would you recognise him again?’

‘Grey-haired I think, or greying, but he stood so much in the shadow, I could not be sure. He leaned on a walking cane which had a curious head: when he once lifted his hand what light there was picked out a shape, as of a silver lion, but with a sea-horse’s tail. He did not turn around, and I never saw his face. I might perhaps find him out again, but I am by no means sure. He spoke once to Mr Williamson, whom he summoned to him in the shadow as one that had the right, but his voice was soft, very soft, and they spoke low, so I could not catch the words. It was after that that your name was mentioned, Mr Holmes, and I was directed to involve you.’

‘You observe well in detail, Lestrade: I have always marked that of you. A curious stick, you say? Venetian lion and sea-horse? Well, I will take your case.’

‘His cloth was of the finest,’ continued Lestrade, as if he had not remarked me, ‘and he carried himself – did I hear you correctly, Mr Holmes? You will take the case? But you know no more than I do. I do not understand.’

‘I will take it on the word of Mr Williamson, Lestrade.’

Lestrade looked at me narrowly: I could see that he was not fooled in the least by my ready capitulation. Watson had remained silent throughout our exchange, but now he too was on the alert, ears pricked and leaning forward in his chair. I would have to explain something: that much was clear.

‘I have some contacts of whom it is best that you remain unaware, Lestrade, you do know this, do you not? Or they would be unwilling to talk both to me and, through me, to you, to solve our little mysteries. Let us just say that I recognise the stick of the gentleman you mention, and if he and Mr Williamson wish to retain my services in this matter, I am  - not unwilling. Although I could wish that he had not let his hand be seen so plainly.’

‘A criminal?’ gasped Lestrade, whose eyes had appeared to protrude from his head in horror during my comments. ‘Mr Adolphus Williamson, the Chief of the Irish Branch, consorting with a criminal to retain your services, Mr Holmes? Whatever next? What is the world coming to: good heavens above!’

‘I did not say he was a criminal, Lestrade, and in fact he is not. Let us just say that the gentleman with the stick is an old, a very old acquaintance of mine and my late unlamented father’s, that he is not unconnected with the government, and that he is, in fact, a far more respectable person than I am. And although I am under no obligation to him, and do not by any means usually feel inclined to oblige him. I will do so in this case. So strangely, Lestrade, it appears now that I do know more about this than you. For if he is involved, then the matter is grave.’

Lestrade’s brow darkened. ‘And now it is you that will not tell me.’ He half rose from his chair. ‘I am a common man, Mr Holmes, and I do not like that I am dragged hither and yon, fooled to the top of my bent by your fine gentlemen friends. Perhaps I had better be going then, and leave you to your mysteries.’

‘Stay, Lestrade, be seated again, I beg you, and do not take offence. I spoke lightly, perhaps, but it was not my intent to injure or anger you.’ I turned to Watson. ‘Doctor, would you trust me, would you be happy to investigate at my side without knowing the principal actor behind these machinations? For I should not tell you the identity of the gentleman with the stick either, although I do most certainly know it. Would you take my word for it that if he is involved then the matter is grave?’

‘Assuredly, Holmes.’ Heavens, how his blue eyes looked into mine, speaking a trust I prayed I would never cease to deserve. ‘Implicitly. Wholeheartedly. Why, Lestrade, I am just as much in the dark as you, but if Holmes thinks he must take this case and investigate what this Meiklejohn fellow is about, surely we should support him?’

‘It is not the same for you, Dr Watson, saving your presence. This is not your professional field: it is mine, and you are a professional gentleman in your own right. You know you would not tolerate it yourself if it were your own professional matter. I do not like to be overridden, and kept in the dark - and what if this is not legitimate? This may seem a game to you, Mr Holmes, but to me, it is my livelihood. And my family’s. I must have some certainty.’

I cursed Mycroft inwardly for mishandling this and leaving me with the aftermath, but I saw how it must have been: he must have had to go through Dolly Williamson, so that his own hand did not appear to any intermediary outside his department, and Williamson must have withstood him until he pushed, so he had needed to be there for the meeting with Lestrade - but if I could not now mollify Lestrade’s wounded pride, then my pitch was queered for good. I had spent years already coaxing him, and Gregson, to work with me, and now I stood to lose all. And rightly too, for I would not be happy if I stood in his shoes. The whole affair felt strange.

‘If I can prove to you that this is all above board, Lestrade, would you work with me then? What is it you want? What can I say or do to persuade you?’

‘Show me a little trust, Mr Holmes. We have trusted you at Scotland Yard, aye, and both Gregson and I have been well ribbed for it, that we cannot do our own work but must depend on the good offices of a gentleman born – for so you are, and there’s no denying it: we did not go to your grand universities, we two, but worked our way up through the ranks. But we put up with the ribbing and the jokes at our expense because there are criminals out there who must be caught, and would not be caught without you. I do not love to see a murderer swing – I am not a vindictive man – but I rejoice to see him – or her – put where they can do no harm to the innocent. So that is why we trust you, and put work your way, and applaud when you are successful. It is for the protection of the innocent, Mr Holmes.’

Watson, clearly concerned about him, went over and patted his shoulder. ‘You are an honourable man, Lestrade, and quite right in what you say. This is not fair dealing, and does not make for trust. Holmes, if you know, if you have the means of divining who the principal is in this, then I think you must tell Lestrade. I would be angry too, were I to be treated so.’

‘And you?’ I asked him. I did not know why I had never told him about Mycroft: could not tell in the least. Was it jealousy, perhaps, that meeting Mycroft, so much my superior in intellect, Watson would think less of me? Fear, that he might learn about me matters which would diminish me in his eyes? Whatever it was, I had refrained from telling him anything about my childhood, and he, kind heart, had never asked. ‘Do you not wish to know who this person is?’

‘Not in the least,’ he replied, cheerily. ‘I am going down to check the house door, Holmes, as Mrs Hudson requested, and to fetch another bottle of wine from the cellar, and I suggest you tell Lestrade about the mysterious personage with the stick – heavens, how the thought whets my writer’s appetite, yet I find I can live quite easily without knowing the fact – and then when everything is cleared up, the two of you can tell me about Mr Meiklejohn of ill-fame before Lestrade betakes himself to the sofa and we to our beds. Hand me a shilling, old fellow, there is bound to be a boy hanging about somewhere – there generally is, even at this hour – and he can take a message to Mrs Lestrade that her husband is unavoidably detained.’

I threw him a shilling, and he left, smiling at me as he closed the door. Silence fell, a silence which, I confess, I did not know how to break.

‘You have a good friend there, Mr Holmes,’ observed Lestrade eventually. His voice was low, and thoughtful. ‘A very good friend indeed.’

‘Yes.’ My heart swelled in my bosom at the thought of Watson’s trust in me. I drew a deep breath. ‘It is my brother, Lestrade, your gentleman with the silver-headed stick. I swear to you I cannot tell you what it is he does: I must not. But in a sense, he is in the government. I cannot express to you how un – how odd - it is that he should interfere in this way. I would I knew why he does. But I do trust him.’

‘Your brother!’

‘I am sorry. Yes.’

‘But you . . . what of the job you do?’

‘He does not entirely approve of me, Lestrade, yes. He is my older – quite some years older – brother. I understand the disapprobation is not entirely uncommon. He does not like my line of work. And in character, we are not alike.’

‘I would say not.’ Lestrade’s guard appeared to have dropped a little. ‘I have an older brother myself. Mine was a – well, he was a meddlesome, overbearing, tale-carrying – I am not unfamiliar with the – but what is it about, Mr Holmes? What is all this about? Why all of this mystery?’

‘I wish I knew.’

‘I did not know you had a brother – but why should I, indeed? And the doctor does not know either. Your brother must be high in the government, if what I saw is correct. Mr Williamson deferred to him.’

‘He has Sir William Harcourt’s complete confidence.’

‘The Home Secretary!

‘Indeed. And Mr Gladstone’s. I must beg your discretion, Lestrade. The work he does is of primary importance to the country. I will tell you more as I can: what I can say is this. For him to have been there means that you, you yourself are trusted at the very highest level. And also that we must work together on this,’

‘And the doctor? Will you tell him?’

‘He will not ask: you heard him, he says he does not need to know. He will be with us anyway, wherever this investigation takes us.’

‘You should tell him: the man deserves it. And this is still a damned, sly, dirty business.’ Lestrade sprang his chair and went to the window, looked out. ‘Politics, politics. Give me an honest crime any day, Mr Holmes. The stinking pitch of politics will stick to any man’s fingers and smirch all he touches thereafter. Well, I will work with you. I like it not, but I will work with you, and we shall see what we shall see. Meiklejohn is a foul man, a blackmailer proven, and I hate all such like poison: they are the lowest of the low, shunned even in prison.’

‘And, and you will not think the worse of me for my brother, Lestrade?’ I found myself oddly anxious, waiting for his reply: it appeared that I coveted his good opinion. And it had cost me a pang when he told me that he and Gregson had come in for ragging over my work with them. I would not have had that happen for the world.

He smiled then, and I relaxed a little. Perhaps all would be well. Maybe. But I sensed change in the air, and it did not make me happy.

‘We cannot help our relations, Mr Holmes. Particularly not our older brothers. That is Dr Watson’s foot on the stair, and I daresay he has another bottle with him. Well, we should tell him about Meiklejohn, and then set out our plan.’

*****

The following morning, after Lestrade had left, Watson and I took a cab to Richmond Park. We had discussed the de Goncourt case – how a wealthy widow had been inveigled into parting with thirty thousand pounds of her principal by two unscrupulous crooks, how these crooks, by name Benson and Kurr, had been discovered, but had paid three detectives – Meiklejohn, Druscovich and Palmer, and a lawyer, Froggatt, to tip them off so as to baffle all pursuit, and how eventually this had been discovered, and they had been brought to justice. The trial of the detectives had followed, of course, and despite the jury recommending Druscovich and Palmer to mercy, they had all been broken and sent down for two years hard.

‘And it should have been five years hard, or even more,’ Lestrade had said bitterly as we bade him goodnight, leaving him to the comfort of a banked fire and a blanket. ‘The Force has been living Meiklejohn’s felonies down ever since.’

Now, pacing arm in arm with Watson along the Richmond paths, and amidst grass just beginning to show the fresh green of spring, I explained to him the extent of Meiklejohn’s corruption.

‘So he has been running a system of blackmail for years?’ he asked. ‘But not as blackmail, in the sense that he has information that he holds over someone?’

‘That too, when he could, but is more that he knew where people were walking on the shady side of the law, and encouraged them to be confident in doing so, knowing that if they were in danger of being caught, he would tip them off; indeed, that for a consideration – quite a substantial consideration, and often in gold - he would ensure that the law’s attention was directed elsewhere, perhaps to people who were not so – generous – to him. I believe in America, the term for it is a ‘protection racket’. He was broken for it, of course, came out of prison, and was forced to make a living doing what he knows best to do – investigating. And because of his contacts, he can be hired for any underhand business: thieves can employ him to spy on their rivals, criminal cartels to watch the minions of the law for them. Johnson will, as I told, Lestrade, have nothing to do with him, neither will my other informants, nor my Irregulars. He is hated and feared in equal measure.’

‘And some mysterious personage in government – and the chief of the Irish Branch – both wish you and Lestrade to investigate the investigator. Intriguing, Holmes.’

‘They wish _us_ to investigate,’ I pressed his arm. ‘You will come in with me, Watson, despite my reticence on certain matters? Let me have your assent, my dear fellow. Indeed, I would be hard put to it to do without you.’

‘Really?’ He touched my wrist. ‘You say so, Holmes, but sometimes I wonder.’

‘How can you wonder? You have accompanied me, in part or in whole on every case. Do you think I would invite, welcome your presence if it were not of importance to me? If having you there were not of inestimable value? I never knew what it was to have a trusted colleague before, Watson. We have been together three years now – I do not know how I would go on if you were not there to assist me. You know that I can be abrupt, impatient, arrogant, but when I look at you it is as if my better self whispers to me. I am reminded of how you would be, courteous, patient, affable: I amend my behaviour, since I hate to incur your disapproval. You do not always see the workings of what I do: what of it? None do. Yet you see differently, and I am the richer for that, and for our discourse. I cannot, will not do without you, Watson. With you beside me I am safe. Pray, say that you will not abandon me.’

His hand soothed mine, gentle and reassuring. ‘I will always be at your side when you want me, Holmes. You know - you must know -  that I count it an honour and privilege to protect – to serve – to be with you.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You might say that I choose to be with you because I have nowhere else to go, no family remaining, no friends alive to speak of -  that I am a singularly lonely man clinging to the only companionship offered me -  and many people might believe that to be true. But were I most richly endowed, were I to be most fortunate in people to, to love, and be loved by, I would still choose you above all others, my dear, my kind friend.’

He stood still in his earnest entreaty, caressing my hand the while (I think almost unconsciously) and with his gaze upturned to mine. It was a moment of exquisite, of almost Greek, intensity, one I feared to break. We looked into each other’s eyes: what he saw in mine I know not, but there was such honesty, such beautiful trust and affection in his blue orbs, the heart shining through them, and all open to me. A slight smile curved his fine-cut mouth. ‘Believe it -  believe me, Holmes.’

‘My Pythias,’ I said to him, hearing my voice waver. ‘ “ _My gallant soldier and fast friend - my halved heart._ ” ’

‘Well, my Damon,’ he returned, and I thrilled that he recognised the quotation from the play we had recently read, ‘you are my _"most noble senator."_   And if I am Pythias, then with him, I must say “ _Thou hast thine armour on: I am thy sword, shield, helm; I but enclose myself and my own heart and heart's blood when I stand before thee."_ Holmes, Holmes, there has never been a man like you. When I returned from the war, I thought there was nothing for me, that I would never have friends more. And then there you were: my miracle.’

He set us in motion again, our arms still closely entwined. ‘You will think me sentimental,’ he said, after a while. ‘You must forgive me: my warm feeling, my affection for you gets the better of me at times.’

‘No,’ I would not let that pass. ‘No. There were years – years when, if I am to speak honestly, I went forlorn and soul-hungry, solitary amid the crowds, with never a gentle word to cheer me. Yours are a gift I cannot treasure enough. Let us be kind to each other then: to whom the harm?’

‘To no-one,’ he agreed. We had, as if by some common, unspoken, consent stepped back a little from the deep intimacy of our words, our locked eyes: we could not – or I could not, and he, I thought, would not – stay long in that place. Our eyes did not meet again. Our consent, though, his to me, and mine to him, to our closeness was acknowledged: henceforth he was my soldier and my shield: I his willing devotee.

For the rest of the day we rambled about in silence, as befits two men who know each other intimately, That evening we dined and read together. When we parted for the night, he called me to him, and, as once before, laid a chaste and simple kiss on my brow. If my delirium between the sheets that night was more sensual than austere, then that was the fault of my fleshly envelope. It clamoured for more, teemed with unholy thoughts, which tortured with their hateful presence the fancy that would fain be pure. Waking, I laid my stern command upon it, yet it betrayed me sleeping. On that following, and on other mornings, I needs must lave away the shameful stigmata of my need, swearing once again that I would never profane our devotion with lust. For he, I believed, was untainted by my depravity, and if he had sensual dreams, they were not of such as I.

*****

Some days later, having sent out my spies, I received a visit from Shinwell Johnson. It was unusual for him to come to me, but I was glad of it, for it meant that I could introduce him to Watson, whom he had not met before. He rolled corpulently into our rooms after luncheon, bringing with him an aroma of gin, cheap tobacco and bay rum, and shook Watson’s hand heartily, commenting that ‘all of us have heard of Dr Watson, o’ course: delighted to meet you, Doctor, an’ if ever you fancy a walk on the wild side, or an introduction or two to some o’ my gay girls, then I should be happy to oblige you. Anythin’ for one of Mr Holmes’ friends. I’ll e’en give you a cut rate: never say I won’t help out a friend.’

Watson clapped him on the shoulder, and maintained that his own army experience had left him glad enough for a chance at a tame life. He smiled then, and swore he was _‘chaste as Diana, Mr Johnson, stainless as the moon,’_ and for a moment I saw, in the steely glint in his eye, the set to his mouth, a sterner, more authoritative Watson, accustomed to the coarse humour of the barracks, at ease with foul-mouthed sergeants, and whoring subalterns, but determined to allow no liberties. He was an adept, practised in an easy yet authoritative camaraderie to which I would never attain, I, who must cow men into submission with deductions that made them fear even as they marvelled (for there are few who are without a shameful secret of one sort or other, after all). I allowed Watson to banter with him for a few moments, wanting him to take Johnson’s measure in full, and was about to recall them to business, when Watson recollected himself.

‘But what of the information Mr Holmes requested,’ he asked, direct, a captain to one of his men. ‘What do you have for us, Johnson?’

‘Meiklejohn is goin’ under cover o’ “Mr Brown” as he has done before,’ Johnson told us. ‘He’s brought two young men wi’ him – Irish lads, renters, Mr Holmes. He keeps ’em straitly confined in an hotel, an’ sozzled with gin – half-cut they are for the most part. Word on the street is he’s after others o’ their breed, an’ daren’t leave these in Dublin for fear of ’em bein’ got at. Came wi’ fifteen subpoenas, an’ a tame lawyer to serve ‘em, or so I’m told, but he’s not the most popular, an’ he’s findin’ his quarry gone missin’ as often as not. That kind stick together ‘gainst such as him.’

I cast a glance at Watson, wondering how he would respond to this, and he shook his head at me. ‘The army, Holmes. And I’ve seen lads of that ilk in the hospital. They live precarious lives, hard lives. Go on, Johnson.’

‘He’s after a lad called Dublin Jack, who’s been a renter for years. Came over from Ireland as a pretty young’un, went back in ’79, when his father died, wandered back to London a year later. He’s wi’ Hammond, much o’ the time, Charlie Hammond, that keeps a disorderly house with his French whore o’ a wife.’

‘Who is the principal? Meiklejohn will not be doing this of his own accord. He is paid or he does nothing.’

Johnson shrugged. ‘Damned if I bloody know.’

‘Who are they aiming at with this? What is the word, Johnson? It must be coming from Dublin. If it is rent boys they are after, is this to do with James Ellis French? His prosecution has been hanging on and off since November last year while he pretends insanity.’

‘I’m thinkin’ it’s more than to do wi’ that, Mr Holmes. French is a poor fish, lily-livered and limp-wristed, an’ he’s not got the spirit to fight. They’re after bigger game – aiming at the English around the Castle: they hate it worse than poison.’

‘Dublin Castle has always been loathed: it stands in for the oppressor. And the Irish have been shabbily treated. They should have had home rule long ago,’ Watson’s voice was hard. ‘Innocent people have gone to their deaths protesting the English tyranny. French may or may not be guilty of sodomy, but he is not being libelled and persecuted simply for that. He is paying the price for English misrule in Ireland.’

‘Y’are a rebel are you, Dr Watson?’ Johnson cocked an eyebrow at me, ‘Your friend has Liberal sympathies, I see.’

‘Dr Watson has a good eye for politics. I fear you are right, Watson. This aims at more than French. Do you have any names for me, Johnson? If they are after Charlie Hammond’s boys, then they will be looking at sodomy charges. Who is likely to be aimed at? Come now,’ as he hesitated, ‘I know you have names.’

Johnson’s smile was wry. ‘Sometimes you know too much, Mr Holmes: the devil himsel’ might be whisperin’ in your ear. Very well then. That sneak Meiklejohn has been back an’ forth all winter. The spooney lads he’s brought with him are called McGrane an’ Clarke. They’re old friends o’ our Dublin Jack. There’s another lad, they’re after, Cecil Graham. I’ve other names, not here, but in Dublin.’

‘Come to those later. Meiklejohn is acting on instruction. Have you heard any names that signify as movers in this matter? Any at all?’

‘Chance. An’ Miley. That’s all I know.’

‘Could be solicitors,’ put in Watson. He leapt up and went to my files. ‘Perhaps it’s a good thing we tidied, Holmes. Here.’ He handed me the ‘C’ and the ‘M’ file.

‘The newspaper behind the reporting on the French case is the United Ireland,’ I said to him, riffling through the papers. ‘It could be the same. Proprietor: William O’Brien, Member of Parliament and Irish Patriot.’

‘William O’Brien, prick, publisher, rat, rabble-rouser an’ rogue,’ snorted Johnson. ‘Parnell’s bloody bleedin’-heart ban-dog, he is. Bought an’ paid for like a tuppenny-upright, twice-an-hour, pox-ridden, ball-breakin’ punk.’

‘Shrill as a Billingsgate fish-wife crying stale cod,’ agreed Watson. ‘That’s a fine flow of invective, Johnson, but you’re not one of my sergeants addressing the troops, so we’ll have less of it in here, if you please. Have you found anything, Holmes?’

‘Chance and Miley act for O’Brien. They are behind the libel against French.’ I handed him the clippings file. ‘So ostensibly, they are Meiklejohn’s principal, but O’Brien is behind that. Is this only about French though?’

‘There’s another thin’.’ For the first time Johnson hesitated. ‘A week or so ago, questions were bein’ asked. There was a man over from Ireland, a gennleman, not a detective. A grand, smooth, quiet-speakin’ gennleman, older, an’ very full of juice – throwin’ sovereigns around like sixpences, he was. He was after the same people as Meiklejohn, but f’different reasons, I think. Dublin Jack knows him of old, says his name is Cornwall. Gustavus Cornwall of the General Post Office.

‘I know of Cornwall. And Jack Saul knows him of old, you say? Well, Johnson, you must get me a meeting with Jack. No, not like that,’ as Johnson uttered a great laugh and another vilely obscene comment, this time about what Jack and I might do, ‘Enough, man, enough, I wish to speak to him about all of this: he may have information that is relevant to the case.’

‘Will you come to us, Mr Holmes, or will I have ‘im visit you?’

‘We will come to you, Johnson,’ Watson put in. ‘At your house, if you please. I shall examine you at the same time: I do not like the look of that sore on your neck, nor the growth by your lip. Do you smoke your tobacco, or chew it? We must deal with it, in any case. Let us know the time and place.’ He stood. ‘Holmes, we shall be late for our appointment at the Yard: do you go and fetch the files you need, and I shall see Mr Johnson out.’

It was news to me that we had any appointment at the Yard, and I was almost about to say so, when I encountered such a fiery glance from Watson as made me pause. There was ire in his eye and command in his bearing. He clapped Johnson on the shoulder again, perhaps rather harder than necessary.

‘Come, Mr Johnson, you know very well you should have seen a doctor before this. Tell me how long the growth has been present.’

I had never seen Johnson allow himself to be shepherded anywhere, let alone to go meekly, but if ever a man was chastened, he was: he followed lamb-like as Watson swept him to the door, chatting briskly the while. What had caused Watson’s sudden access of authority, I knew not, but although gentle in tone, it was iron-hard in intent. I could not account for it. I was soon to be enlightened, however.

‘I have let Mr Johnson know that if he makes another such suggestion anent your honour it will go very ill with him indeed,’ he said, the moment he returned to our room. His eyes were hot, his fists clenched convulsively, and his shoulders were braced: suddenly I saw the ‘bull-pup’ of a temper that he had owned to when we first met. ‘I’ll not have you maligned like that, Holmes: how dare he suggest that you might consort with a prostitute in the street. Had you not had need of him I would have taken him down where he stood, the foul creature. I’ll not have it, Holmes.’

‘It was a jest,’ I protested. ‘I have known Johnson a long time, Watson, and truly, he meant no harm. It is just his way of speaking: I took no offence.’

‘I will still not have it.’ He crossed to the table, poured a measure of brandy, and drank it down. With some dismay, I saw that his hands were shaking. ‘I will not stand by and allow you to be maligned. That was a vile insinuation against your honour.’

‘He merely suggested that I might welcome Jack’s presence for the reasons most men do,’ I pointed out. ‘Since, rationally, I know that I would not, where is the harm in allowing Johnson his joke?  If jesting makes him more inclined to help me, then I will not censure it: it matters nothing. “Let the galled jade wince”, as your favourite, Hamlet, says, “our withers are un-wrung.” And I know on the free wards you try to heal and help prostitutes, Watson, the men and the women both, so I do not understand your reaction. It is not poor Jack himself to whom you object, is it?’

‘No,’ He passed a hand over his eyes and sighed. I could see his shoulders droop, and realised that his sudden flash of temper had spent itself. I went to him, and took the glass gently from his hand. ‘No, of course not. It is only that, well, it angered me to see him standing there, and making that foul suggestion about you. I am sorry, Holmes, I hope I have not queered your pitch. I will button my lip in future, I promise you, old boy. But I do not think I have: he was very glad to get the promise of doctoring, and we shall have off that growth before it becomes worse. He will be left with a very dashing scar, and so I told him. It is no different from dealing with my men in the army, after all. They learned quickly I would not stand for vile talk. Only one must be kind, as well as firm.’ He paused, then grasped my hand. ‘Forgive me my hot temper, Holmes. I am jealous for your honour, my dear fellow, that is all.’

‘Well you are my Pythias, are you not?’ I could not think of anything else to say. No one had ever defended me as he did, and I did not entirely know how to feel about it other than that it made my heart flutter, and desire spark along my every nerve.

‘I am your soldier, it is true. Tell me, my Damon, my learned senator, what do you make of this business? And who is this Gustavus Cornwall of the GPO?’

*****

If I had known little of Cornwall before, I was soon to know much more than I wanted. The man was a bugger: that much was soon clear. Which is to say that he had regularly engaged in in the past, and habitually did engage in _‘peccatum illud horribile inter Christianos non nominandum’_ : that detestable sin which Christians do not name. He had, moreover, according to Dublin Jack, engaged in it, and in other acts, with a wanton lack of discrimination: in his house, in others’ houses, in clubs, and pubs, in bawdy houses and botanical gardens, in cabs and urinals, privatim et seriatim, as the saying goes, for several decades, until I rather wondered that he had found time to carry out his Post Office duties with the praiseworthy regularity he had. I had never met Mr Cornwall, but, as I confided to Watson, he impressed me as an energetic and thorough specimen. Watson, who had sullenly guarded me to my meeting with the pleasant young Irishman, was unimpressed, growling that it was a sorry state of affairs when a man’s private business could not remain his private business. He looked so annoyed that I apologised for being flippant, and told him the truth, which was that I, like he, loathed this making windows into men’s souls.

‘Then why are we doing it?’ he asked me wearily, as, both clad in nondescript garments, we trudged through the streets to another meeting with our cheerful young prostitute. ‘Why, Holmes, are we engaged in this deeply sordid affair? Surely there are other matters more worthy of our time and attention? Could not Lestrade do it?’

‘Jack will not talk to Lestrade. He will only countenance me because Johnson has vouched for me, and you because you began by making it quite clear at our initial meeting that you were there to guard my dubious virtue, and that amused him - and then you turned round on your growling and doctored him sweetly, and gratis. I am sorry you do not like him though, Watson, he is as harmless a fellow as ever stepped. There is no malice in him, and I find his honesty almost – endearing, after all. And he is well-mannered.’

‘I do not dislike him: I feel sorry for him, as well as being concerned about his health. I hate to think that a promising lad has so little other chance in life that he must sell himself, body and soul, to get on.’

‘He would not thank you for your pity, although he was grateful for your pills and potions, Watson. To himself he seems to have made the best choice out of many, and all of those choices worse than his. He gives pleasure, and he receives pleasure, and money into the bargain. Is that so bad?’

‘It is when the lad is in a muck sweat for fear of this Meiklejohn, and can be put in subjection by such as he. If ever I meet that fellow I shall greet him with my fist and no words. He is an insufferable bully.’

‘Watson, I have never known you to behave so belligerently: of a sudden you bear the sword of Ares, not Hermes’ caduceus. Where is my gentle doctor?’

‘At your side, Holmes, as always, unless you turn me away. Oh, I am sorry. I do not like this work: there is no honour in it. And it is cloudy and uncertain, for I have no more idea of what we are truly investigating than my poor sister might have done.’

‘Would it help if I told you that I am beginning to? And that it is big – bigger than anything I have touched hitherto?’

‘Holmes!’ He stopped in his tracks, and I took his arm and urged him on again.

‘Keep walking, Doctor, this is no place to dawdle around: not unless you wish to be relieved of your watch at knife-point.’

I told him then, as we traversed the dreary way, what I suspected, which was that this was related to the Phoenix Park murders of two years gone, when Cavendish, the newly appointed Chief Secretary of Ireland, and Burke, the Lord Lieutenant’s secretary, had been assassinated by Fenians. Parnell, the leader of the Irish Nationalists seeking independence from Britain, had been furious about the assassination: “how can I carry on a public agitation if I am stabbed in the back in this way?” he had said. His Nationalist party had lost the moral high ground as the assassination had placed them firmly in the league of murderers and illegitimates, and had never recovered its political standing.

Since then those about Parnell had been desperately trying to regain it: not least among them William O’ Brien, owner of the United Irishman, MP and rabble rouser as Shinwell Johnson had said. It was he who had, last summer, targeted the wretched James Ellis French, director of the detective branch of the Royal Irish Constabulary, successful investigator of the Phoenix Park murders, and a sodomite so notorious in the service that young constables were warned about his proclivities and his intemperance in satisfying them. In Catholic Ireland, his acts made him more loathed even than they would have been in England. Combining as he did the attributes of being a traitor who worked for the English oppressor, a vicious opponent of Fenians and Nationalists, a representative of the loathed English authority at Dublin Castle, and the perpetrator of a ‘sin’ universally cried out against by Irish and English alike, the unhappy French was an obvious target for ‘Screaming William’ to take aim at in his sorry rag of a journal.

‘So you are telling me that French was targeted because of who he represents, not just because of what he does – if he does? That O’Brien has provoked him deliberately, because he wants a libel case? The man must be mad.’

I urged Watson forward again. ‘The combination of French’s position and his errors have made him an ideal stalking horse for O’Brien’s purpose, which is to blacken English authority in Ireland so deeply that the Phoenix Park murders pale into insignificance beside England’s infamy. But he chose the wrong man when he attempted to persuade French into a libel action – for it is a libel action that he wants, to bring these matters into the public eye, and then he will plead justification, of course, saying that he has acted in the public interest by exposing the detestable sin.’

‘I cannot believe this. Is this the purpose of journalism, to harry and harass a man about his private affairs? It is that which is iniquitous, not French’s personal life.’

‘I believe that this is the new style of journalism, Watson, where a man’s private life is not private if he be a man in the public eye. O’Brien is not the only journalist to behave so: take your favourite, Labouchère. That repulsive broadsheet of his – ‘Truth’ he calls it – is of the same ilk.’

‘Burns-Gibson says that Labouchère’s aim is to expose corruption and injustice, so that the lot of the poor may be ameliorated. And he is not ‘my favourite, Labouchère,’ expostulated Watson. He sounded put-out. ‘There are many groups working together at the moment – Mrs Butler’s, and William Stead’s, for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act: that I certainly support. There is a fellow called Benjamin Waugh – my Fabian acquaintance, Ellis, has been telling me about him – who wishes to create a national society that protects children, just as there is already one that protects animals – do not you think it shocking, Holmes, that dumb beasts are afforded greater protection in this country than the young of our own species? Labouchère popularises all of these causes in his journal. Surely, surely, you must see that this is to the good of all? I do not understand your prejudice against him.’

‘I do not like him: I do not know why.’

‘It is “I do not like thee, Dr Fell,” with you, in fact.’

‘It is: I am sorry, Watson. It is an unconquerable repulsion, if you like, similar to that which I feel when I see a snake – and you well know how I feel about snakes.’

‘A snake! Poor Labouchère! Holmes, I have never known you to be so melodramatic. But I will not press you again to meet him, if you do not wish to: it is true that you have put me off several times, but I had no idea you disliked him so intensely.’

‘I think him hypocritical, Watson. He inveighs against scandal and sin, yet he is living out of wedlock himself, and has been for years. He reprobates the Bohemian, yet arrogates to himself the privileges of an artist - in dress, in the way he lives, in licentious behaviour. He can afford to be reckless in his accusations because his personal fortune is immense. It matters little to him who he libels and slanders: whatever the verdict he can stand the cost, so he is careless with people’s lives for the sake of outdoing William O’Brien in gaining readers. He may do some good: I do not deny it. Ask yourself also how much harm he does.’

‘If that is your opinion I will weigh it well, I assure you: I would never wish to quarrel with you, my dear fellow. But to return to the man, French, whom you say is the wrong man for O’Brien to have taken aim at . . .’

‘French is craven, and will not step up to the bar. He has hung on and off with this libel action until it is too late to do anything. So O’Brien, balked of that prey, takes aim at another: he is muckraking for anything he can find about Cornwall, whom, although he belongs to the Post Office, and not, strictly speaking, to the Castle, also represents the English oppressor. He believes, perhaps, that Cornwall will rise to the challenge and sue him for libel. That is why he has sent Meiklejohn, through his intermediaries, Chance and Miley, to find what he can – and I fear me that there is much to find from what Jack says.’

‘But how can it matter what Cornwall does in private? His – his proclivities are a matter for himself. They do not affect his efficiency, nor his conduct of his business: if it were the case that a man’s sexual peccadilloes precluded him from governing, half the cabinet would be found guilty and the Government would fall. These people are none of them without sin, Holmes, so why are they casting stones?’

‘It is true that they are fornicators and adulterers to the last man, my dear fellow. But they do not fornicate with men, and that is the difference. Cast your eye backwards into history. What comes to mind when I say to you ‘Edward the Second’ and ‘James the First’? _“Speak now, sad brow, and honest maid”._ What comes to mind?’

‘It is “true maid,” not “honest maid”: if you are quoting, for all love, at least quote accurately. Well then, you are right. Piers Gaveston, and George Villiers. The favourites of those two ill-reputed kings.’

‘And why were they ill-reputed, my dear Watson?’

‘Because they wasted their substance on male lovers, and were therefore thought to be effeminate, and easily swayed. They were deemed not to govern honestly.’

‘Thought to be less than men,’ I corrected him. ‘And therefore unfit to govern. Why was Alexander the Great criticised? For the excessive love he bore Hephaistion, which rendered him, when his lover died, weak and womanish. What was said of Julius Caesar? That he was every woman’s man, and every man’s woman. Think you his assassination was mere coincidence? What charge was levelled at Caligula, at Nero, at Heliogabalus? That they dressed as women, and were unfit to govern – as unfit as Boulton and Park would have been. Now Boulton and Park were harmless. They did nothing wrong but dress as females, and parade around as ‘Stella’ and ‘Fanny’. They could be forgiven: they were creatures of no importance themselves, and not representative of a nation. But what did Jack tell us when last we saw him, Watson? That Cornwall’s nick-name is ‘the Duchess’ and that one of his male associates went by ‘Lizzie.’ They are called by women’s names: the accusation will be that - forgive me for my broad speaking, I beg you - that they act between the sheets the woman’s part. Does not this put a different complexion on the matter?’

‘There are moves afoot this year to ask for the vote for women: I do not think even Gladstone will prevail upon the House to allow that. If men will not consider women as their true partners in all areas of life then a man who takes the name of a woman, plays the part of a woman, loses all respect. If the consensus is that women are unfit to play a part in public life, then a man who acts as a woman will also be deemed unfit. I take your meaning, Holmes. And I see how this takes aim at the English ascendancy in Ireland. Are you sure of this? Do you have proof?’

‘The chain of reasoning holds. I have spent much time and pain in constructing it, and I believe it sound. Proof? No. That I await, which is why we are visiting Jack, again in the hopes of finding out a little more. Before I can see my way clear as to what to do, I must know what I may not do without endangering – certain people.’

He caught my sleeve. ‘Stay, Holmes. Your highly placed principal who met Lestrade with Adolphus Williams – oh, do not look at me like that, of course he is highly placed or you and Lestrade would not have been put onto this trail – do you think he is involved in this? I have not speculated as to his identity - ’

‘ – continue not to speculate, my dear Watson, if you would be so kind - ’

‘ – and it is not my intention to speculate: really, Holmes, you might trust me a little, my dear man. But I take it that this is something that touches the very highest.’

‘I believe it to be.’

‘Then what should be done? What is the best way of dealing with this?’

‘England would be better leaving Ireland to herself, for one thing. But failing that exceptionally unlikely event coming to pass, given that it is undoubtedly true that Cornwall, and possibly others connected with the English establishment in Ireland have been committing at least what is reprobated as indecency, if not sodomy, with a complete lack of discretion, and also given that there will undoubtedly be evidence to that effect somewhere, it would be far better if any libellous accusations in O’Brien’s scandal sheet were completely ignored. But I daresay they will not be: to ignore the accusation is to assent by silence to its truth. The battle must be fought, even if the cause is lost from the beginning. Once a man’s name is stained by these accusations, it is hard to be seen as spotless. Even if acquitted, something still lingers, and his reputation is never the same again.’

We walked on for a while in silence, until we came to Johnson’s door.

‘At least it is difficult to prove sodomy has occurred,’ said Watson, thoughtfully. ‘Or rather, it is difficult to prove unless immediately after the event. And despite what Juvenal is indicating when he remarks _“sed podice levi caeduntur tumidae medico ridente mariscae,”_ the infundibuliform anus is not an inevitable mark of the passive partner in sodomy: any decent surgeon would be prepared to testify that it can also be caused by certain diseases, and would so take oath in this case even if only to preserve a man’s reputation. I certainly do not know any of my colleagues who would swear away a man’s life and freedom on what may be a mere accident of physiology or an incipient tumour, or an unfortunate haemorrhoidal issue. Or even a lifetime’s over-enthusiastic use of cathartics, in fact.’

‘Thank you, Watson,’ said I, rapping discreetly at the door. ‘It is entirely possible that I may never forget that you said that. Especially the Juvenal and the cathartics.’

‘Oh, don’t mention it,’ he replied, his gaze absent, his mind still, no doubt, revolving other professional conundra. ‘What is the point of knowing a doctor after all if you cannot get a medical opinion on a case when you need one? And although the medical consequences of improperly performed sodomy are not a pleasant subject to discuss, of course, I consider you quite as an honorary colleague, my dear fellow, so I have no need to be squeamish and veil my words as I might if I were addressing the matter with a layman.’

‘Indeed not,’ I replied, swallowing hard, and passing a hand across a brow that was unaccountably damp. ‘It is an honour I do not deserve, however: my knowledge is sadly limited about the physical consequences of immoderate and ah, unusual, ah, um, erotic activity compared to yours.’

‘Well, you do not have to examine the sick,’ said he, seriously. ‘And I do, of course.’

*****

By the time we were on our way to our third meeting with Jack Saul, I was certain of my hypothesis: that the intention of William O’Brien, his colleague, Tim Healy, and those supporting them, was to use Cornwall, French, and another man, George Bolton’s, irregularities of life to bring down the English administration in Ireland. I had communicated this information discreetly to Mycroft, and had also told him to his face that his intervention had nearly cost me my professional association with Lestrade. He was not apologetic: for him the welfare of the country was more important then anything else. I understood this, but did not condone it. Unusually for him, he had stopped me as I was about to leave the Diogenes after our somewhat cool meeting, and made a personal enquiry after Dr Watson.

‘He is well, I thank you,’ I had replied, moving towards the door. ‘His health has improved, but is still delicate, although he has not had a relapse of the fever for a while. I ensure he does not overdo, of course.’

‘Indeed. And may one hope to meet him, Sherlock?’

‘In due course, I am sure, Mycroft. I have not told him anything about my family.’

‘I would not expect it: I know your reticence. Well, I am happy to see you looking better in yourself, and with a little more flesh on your bones. And you have completely left off the morphia, I see. He is good for you, brother, your doctor. I broached the last case of the 1858 Romanée-Conti from our father’s cellar this week, and it is a superb wine, superb. Will you take a bottle or two for your friend?’

I had hesitated, I confess. I hated to take anything from our old home, that place of grey, relentless misery, but the wine was, in fact, superb, and I knew Watson would enjoy it. The season for game was over, but I could ask Mrs Hudson for beef or duck. Before I could say any more, Mycroft nodded. ‘Duck, I would advise. A pair of fat ducks sharply roasted would go well. I shall send a couple of bottles round to you then. Good day to you, Sherlock. And thank you. I do not know where this investigation will go, but I do not think it bodes well for us.’

He had not specified ‘us’ and I was glad. I had no wish to have the thing out in the open between us: better a gentlemanly reticence on the fact that neither of us, confirmed bachelors as we were, had ever been likely to provide an heir for our parents. (Mycroft ran the estate, but I knew he had had it placed in trust for a cousin, who would inherit in due course.)

The wine – six bottles of it, half the case - had duly arrived, along with a pair of ducks, (much to Mrs Hudson’s chagrin, for like all good housekeepers she prided herself on her ability to choose her meat herself), a bottle of an exceptionally fine Napoleon cognac, half a barrel of oysters and a dozen of Chablis. My brother was a generous man when he chose, and I was, reluctantly, forced to own myself touched.

Watson, however, was amused. I did not even need to open my mouth and concoct some lie before he had raised an eyebrow, and remarked, ‘Your highly-placed acquaintance is clearly pleased with your work, my dear Holmes. Tell me, could there be more of it after we have finished this? I could become accustomed to living in such style,’ while raising his glass in a silent toast. Now, as we waited for Johnson, he animadverted again to the gift, saying that he could estimate the situation’s gravity by the generosity of our donor.

‘I think it will be impossible to determine how grave the situation is until we have all the available information,’ I told him, as the door was opened for us. ‘Johnson: thank you. What, or who, do you have for us today?’

‘Good morning, Johnson: step into the light for a moment before you answer Mr Holmes, please. Let me look at your face. No, tilt your chin to the left. That is healing very well. You must continue to keep it clean. Forgive me, Holmes, pray continue now.’ Watson stood aside to let both Johnson and myself precede him into the house. ‘Yes, who do you have for us today?’

‘I’ve someone Meiklejohn ‘ld dearly like to get his hands on,’ grinned Johnson. ‘An’ news of others into the bargain.’

‘An’ can ye not be satisfied with meself, then, Doctor Watson? Am I not fine enough for ye? Me heart’s broken, Sir, broken, an’ who’s to mend it?’

‘I’m no breaker of hearts, Jack, my lad.’ Watson’s suspicions of Jack had lasted precisely one meeting. The fresh-faced, fair-haired young man standing by the fire - a boy with eyes as Irish blue as Watson’s own and who could almost have been his smaller and slighter young brother – smiled at us and held out a languid hand to my  companion. He was twenty-six to Watson’s thirty-two, and had gentle, graceful manners, with an almost feminine delicacy about him and a touch of class: it could be said that he had turned the necessity of being pleasing for his profession into a gift. (His demeanour came across as innocently unstudied, although his words often belied the behaviour.)

‘How are you today, my boy? Did you take the coltsfoot linctus as I bade you?’ And anoint your chest with the mentholated rub? That was a bad cough you had there after your cold: you cannot be too careful with afflictions of the chest, not with your family history.’

‘’Twould have been better if I’d had you around to rub it into me, Doctor, and give it me good an’ hot an’ strong. Sure an’ ‘twas an electuary or a bolus I was after, to exercise me tongue between whiles, as it were. There’s no trouble in swallowing a linctus, it slips down me throat as easy as . . .’

‘Jack!’ Watson’s voice was stern. ‘I’ll not have you speaking filth in front of Mr Holmes. Behave now, and tell us what you have for us.’

‘I’ll be telling ye the entirety of me sad story, Doctor, since I’ve seen that I can trust ye with it. An’ Mally here’ll be doing the same, won’t ye my boy?’

(I hid a smile at this: it was not my persuasions that had won the young man over, but Watson’s careful doctoring, offered, as it always was, without reference to the social standing of the patient. I could keep my informants sweet with filthy lucre, but Watson won their loyalty with patient kindness. And no matter how much he grumbled and growled at the outset, he doctored every waif and stray he found.)

‘If you warrant them sound, Jack. Malcolm Johnstone at your service, gentleman. Jack here tells me you have information about this damned detective haunting the city, preventing us honest men from going about our business.’ Johnstone smirked at me as he spoke. What he was doing in this area I could not think: the man was no Jack, earning his pennies with the only assets he had, but judging by his clothes, his boots and his soft, well-manicured hands, a wealthy, spoilt scion of trade. He was turned out as an exquisite, his hair oiled and curled, and his whole person reeking of some sickly scent – and he was a repulsive specimen. I would sooner have had to do with Jack’s honest whoredom than this wretched cur.

‘I think we will take your information first before we offer our own,’ I said. Damn the fellow, he was eyeing Watson with a lecherous grin on his face: I could have struck the smile from it without more ado had I not had need of his story. ‘Let us sit. Proceed, Jack. Dr Watson will take notes, if you do not mind.’

‘As ye know, gentlemen, I’m a poor Catholic lad, Dublin born, and bred, unlike me rich friend Mally here. And since me father couldn’t provide for me, I had to do the best I could. An’ that was where me friend Martin came in . . .’

Jack told us his first lover of note had been Martin Oranmore ‘Lizzie’ Kirwan, a Lieutenant in the first Dublin Regiment of Foot. He’d been twenty-eight to Jack’s eighteen, spoilt, snobbish, good-looking, and fond of ‘a bit of rough.’ (I did not know what it was that attracted so many middle-class youths to much younger working-class men, but it appeared to be part of a pattern: Edward Carpenter, I recalled, had hymned their praises also.) It was Kirwan who had groomed Jack out of his thick Irish brogue, leaving just enough of a lilt in his speech to entice, Kirwan who had taught him to dress and behave in ways acceptable to polite society, and Kirwan who introduced him to the fifty-three year old Gustavus Cornwall, whom his family had known since Kirwan’s boyhood. (The distinction between who paired with whom, or which one procured bed-mates and which was the procuree appeared to be fluid: similar, I thought, to the erastes/eromenos pairings of the Greeks, where the eromenos, once mature, would himself in turn become an erastes to a younger man. Although I doubted if the teaching of civic duty was part of these pairings.)

‘Were Cornwall and Kirwan lovers?’ Watson asked, coolly, laying down his pen and flexing his fingers. ‘Or had they been?’

‘Well, now, that I couldn’t bring meself to say,’ replied Jack. ‘Ye must know, me dear Doctor, that in our world there’s no marrying an’ giving in marriage, although many of the ladies do settle down for a while. We’re more of the butterfly sort: here today an’ gone tomorrow. Martin was fond of old Gus, like ye might be of an old lover, ‘tis true. There was five-an’-twenty years between them: an’ dear Gus always did have an eye for a pretty lad. ‘Twas Gus himself that gave me me next leg up, as it were, after we’d been introduced at a musical party. But when I was first with Martin, Gus was head-over-heels about another lad: Alfred McKiernan.’

‘His is one of the names on Meiklejohn’s subpoenas. Thank you. But what of the musical parties, Jack? Meiklejohn has been making enquiries about them: he seems to think them significant.’

‘Well, Mr Holmes, we must meet somewhere, d’ye not think? McKiernan has a lovely voice he does, just like a lark an’ there’s nothing wrong with a little music. Do ye not like the music y’rself, Mr Holmes? ‘Tis a fine speaking voice ye have, now, although not a patch on the Doctor’s. I could listen to him whispering sweet nothings in me ear all night, so I could.’

‘Jack,’ came the quiet warning.

‘Oh, very well, Dr Watson,’ Jack’s eyes were mischievous. ‘But ye’ll not be telling me ye are pure as a priest, now, the fine upstanding man that ye are. I’ll take me Bible oath that there were many girls who sighed for ye in the army. An’ lads too, like your Mr Holmes here sighs.’

‘Any thought of romanticism is anathema to me.’ I said, coldly, though an unstoppable tide of red had burned from my throat to my brow. ‘Love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all other things.’

‘Mr Holmes and I are companions, nothing more, Jack.’ Watson spoke briskly, his gaze, after one quick glance at my no doubt scorching blush, carefully averted. ‘He is a man of great intellect whose avocation is the pursuit of knowledge. I owe him a debt of gratitude for assisting me to recover after my war injuries. We are as brothers. Now let me have no more of this, if you please: in truth, the situation is serious enough, and we have no time for folly.’

‘Very well, Sir, if ye say so, then ‘tis meself that’ll not be teasing ye more. The parties are an excuse to meet with other like-minded gents, Mr Holmes. There’s a lot a song can say that words in the street cannot, if ye take my meaning. So assignations are made an’ broken, an’ we’re safe enough with our own kind.’

‘But Cornwall is married,’ remarked Watson. ‘And so, presumably are others.’

‘They are, Sir, but their wives are often away. An’ some of the men are bachelors, Farquharson the banker, for example, an’ they’re the ones who entertain, for the most part. We all know who’s who, Mr Holmes, an’ if a man wants to come in, he has to be vouched for. ‘Twas me friend Martin got me the entry – an’ another man, Boyle, who brought in McKiernan and Taylor.’

‘Do Clarke and McGrane, that Meiklejohn has in his clutches, have the entry? Have they seen this happen, been to these parties?’

‘They’re more like the rough trade, Mr Holmes. Billy Clarke can neither read nor write: what would he do with a song sheet, now? But they’ll take a walk with a man for a few shillings, or a cab ride to the Botanic Gardens. We all know where to go.’

‘How many men are involved in this, Jack?’

Jack shrugged, as if to say he did not know, and neither did he care, and Malcolm Johnstone, who, up until this point had been sitting silently leering at my Watson, rolled his eyes at me.

‘As good ask how many gay girls there are in London,’ he said, impatiently. ‘The musical party set – maybe a hundred, maybe two. But lads who earn their pennies by joining a gentleman in a cab for a quick fumble, or go to their knees in an alley are two-a-penny, Mr Holmes, as you must know, you and your ‘companion’ here.’ He sneered slightly as he said it, and Watson eyed him hard, whereat he flushed and dropped his impertinent gaze. ‘What does it matter what men do: if there’s no harm in it? I do not see that it matters to anyone, least of all this detective fellow. What can they prove unless they catch you in the act? If all of us boys French and Cornwall have buggered or been buggered by were laid end to end they’d reach from London to Dublin, but he’ll never prove it, any more than he’ll prove anything else I have done. Let him bring it on: I have nothing to fear.’

‘The aim is to damage reputation rather than to send down at her Majesty’s pleasure,’ explained Watson, after one look at me. For once, he was the one of us keeping his temper, and I the one biting back angry words: no insult aimed at me hit a mark, but insolence to Watson I could not tolerate.

Johnstone rolled his eyes again: he was a damned unpleasant fellow, and had it not been for the severity of the issue, I would have handed him over to Meiklejohn, blackguard as he was, for the mere pleasure of seeing him taken down a peg or two.

‘And where do you two come in then? Whose side are you on?’

‘I work with Scotland Yard – and the Yard has an interest in what Meiklejohn is doing: a corrupt ex-detective is good news for nobody. It upsets the honest inspectors and it adds to their burden. And have you not considered why Meiklejohn is after you, Johnstone? You have just told me that you have had carnal relations with French and Cornwall. Do you wish to go into court and testify to that? Be intimately examined by the court’s doctors? Is everything in your life so innocent that you have nothing to fear? Meiklejohn already has Clarke, and McGrane, and he is after you, and after Jack here. You are to be used to bring down two powerful men, and if, in the process, what you have left of reputation in the world is ruined, or you acquire a gaol sentence, he cares nothing. He is a bully, a drunk, a blackmailer, and a man accustomed to violence. By all means walk into his trap if you choose: I shall not prevent you. I am here to find information, not to save your miserable hide or answer impertinent questions. Go about your business then: it is clear you have nothing of value to offer us and have had a warning for free.’

‘We do not need you as much as you need us, Johnstone.’ Watson’s voice was cold. ‘No doubt you have family, respectable family, who would not want to see you dragged through the courts. Sing a little smaller, man, if you know what is good for you: you are on dangerous ground.’

Johnstone blustered and wriggled, but did not leave, and before the meeting was out had given me more names: Juan Albert de Fernandez, who was an army surgeon holding the rank of major in the grenadier guards and known slightly to Watson; Johnston Lyttle, Malcolm’s own cousin; Farquharson and Boyle, bankers; James Pillar, a Quaker wine merchant now in his seventieth year: Charles Fitzgerald, another aristocrat like Kirwan; a Captain George Joy, a man now in his forties, who had known Cornwall since he was fifteen; two keepers of disorderly houses, Considine and Fowler; innumerable captains and majors in the army; two priests, the Right Reverend Thomas Dancer Hutchinson and Father Paul Keogh, who according to Johnston had danced together (in a rare show of ecumenical unity to which I doubted their respective Protestant and Catholic churches would ever attain) at a ball at Johnston’s father’s house where half the men dressed as women; and an elderly Tory member of parliament: Sir James Tynte Agg-Gardner, who had introduced Johnston himself to Kirwan. He sang, in fact, as the thieves’ parlance had it, not small, but like a bird, and with each and every name my heart sank, for if Meiklejohn was uncovering this network, and it was all to come to court then the ramifications of the exposure would be grave indeed.

I cared nothing for the propping up of the dubious English authority in Dublin, although I knew that that was what concerned my brother, but I cared, I have to admit, a great deal for Mycroft. And Agg-Gardner, before he had escaped abroad to live a less trammelled life than was possible in England, had been a member of Mycroft’s club, the Diogenes. Meiklejohn, in his venal, blundering, violent way, had stumbled upon a network of men who lived quietly undercover lives, lives that society, if it knew of them, would hold up to scorn and obloquy. They harmed no-one as a rule (although I thought those the more honest who did not marry but stayed bachelors) but wove their way through society, in it, but not of it. It seemed to me to be a sad way to live, always hiding, always seeking for the community of their kind in a secret, mirrored version of what others had freely and openly, but who was I to judge them? I, who had crimsoned at poor, honest Jack’s hint that I might sigh for my doctor, I, who sweated and moaned in my bed at the thought of Watson’s kind hands on me, I, who had never dared to give voice to my thoughts or substance to my need - I was a coward: they had courage to own their affections as best they could.

*****

‘O’Brien has accused Cornwall - in the House - of unmentionable crimes,’ said Watson, quietly, coming in with the evening paper on a mid-May evening. ‘I am afraid, Holmes, he must sue for libel, or be damned by his silence. A newspaper article like the one last week on the tenth can be ignored, but in the Commons, O’Brien is protected by parliamentary privilege, and cannot be called to account otherwise now. I am sorry, my dear fellow. I know that your friend in government did not want this to come to court, but I am afraid there is no longer any choice. There will be a libel action. O’Brien has succeeded in that at very least. Given what you and I have heard from Jack, and others, O’Brien will be able to prove justification. And if he proves that his libel was justified, then Cornwall, French, Kirwan – they will all have to stand trial for sodomy. The Government cannot be seen to wink at vice in its officials, and thus O’Brien’s purpose will be fulfilled.’

‘I am aware of it, Watson. Lestrade was here earlier, while you were at the hospital. We collated our information for my friend in government. Have you dined?’

‘I have not, no. Do you wish to go out this evening? I believe Mrs Hudson has cooked for us: there is a very savoury smell coming from the kitchen. Do you not wish to stay here?’

‘I am stifling. If I sit here all evening with nothing to do, I shall go mad. My brain is tearing itself to pieces.’

‘Would it help you to play? I can see the black mood is on you, my dear: tell me what I must do to alleviate it.’

‘I cannot touch the violin today. Morphia would lift this mood, but you will say that I must not have any.’

‘Indeed you must not, my dear Holmes: let us not go down that road again. Has Lestrade no case for you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Then let us walk, Holmes. Perhaps we can tire you out enough to find a little peace. I shall tell Mrs Hudson to set dinner aside: we can always eat it tomorrow, and we shall buy a pie or an ordinary wherever we chance upon it. Come, take off your dressing gown, and let us go. Have you not stirred all day, my dear fellow?,’

‘No. I could not, Watson, you know I could not.’

‘I know.’ He had tugged me to my feet, and stripped my gown from me, now he brought me my coat and saw me into it, tidied my loosened tie, and brought my shoes. ‘Put these on: I shall speak to Mrs Hudson, and return directly for you. We will go down to St Giles, or Limehouse if you want a longer walk, enquire after some of our lads and lasses, and see what good we can do. You need something that will stretch your legs and make you breathe. It is not good for you to sit here and brood all day, Holmes.’

It was not good for me, and I knew it was not good for me, but at times like this, I did not know how to drag myself out of the Slough of Despond. Walking beside Watson, my hand tucked into his arm, matching him stride for stride, as near to him as I could be without impeding his steps, I felt at least a measure of equanimity return to me. He set a fast pace at first to tire me out, but I slowed him after a while: it was he, not I, who would suffer if we overdid it.  The evening was close: it had been unseasonably hot for May, and there was tension in the air.

‘I think it is going to storm,’ Watson remarked, as we paused for breath. He disengaged himself from me, took off his hat, and mopped his brow. We had been going for about thirty minutes and were traversing the narrow, filthy streets around St Giles. ‘A good night of rain would clean these damned kennels: they stink. This whole place is an affront to the eye and the nostril. Look at it!’ He gestured around, and I followed his eye: the rookeries of Seven Dials were, as he said, kennels, save that they were not fit to house even a dog. Children, their clothing in every state of dilapidation, their bare, dirty feet scuffing through the indescribable sludge of the overflowing gutters, screamed and squabbled and swarmed like mice amid the costermongers’ and hawkers’ barrows and stalls, and on every street corner were lads no older than fifteen and girls even younger plying for hire.

‘For pity’s sake, let us move on,’ he went on, ‘For some reason, I cannot stand it here today. We said we could do some good but what avails anything we do? If I were to sain one bruise, there would still be a thousand unanointed: if I were to rescue one child, there would be yet a thousand left. This cannot, must not continue. We are in a civilised country in 1884: I have seen no worse than this in the reeking slums of Bombay or Calcutta. My God, Holmes this is vile. No! My God! Look at that villain!’ and leaving my side entirely he plunged across the street to where a brute of a man was twisting a young girl’s arm behind her back.

She, a fragile, fair slip of a thing, was completely silent under his cruel abuse, until, just as Watson reached her, I heard the bone snap. She screamed then, shrill and high, and he let go of her in time for Watson to catch her as she swooned. The man snarled, and swung at Watson, and throwing off my coat, caring little or nothing that he was at least twice my weight, I went for the brute with my fists up, a red mist before my eyes and a terrible joy in my heart . . .

 . . . ‘Holmes, Holmes, let him go now. Holmes, old fellow, let him be. The constable has him now, not that he needs a constable: I shall be seeing him in the damn hospital as well as his daughter: I swear you’ve broken his jaw. Let be now, come away, old chap, that’s right. Sergeant, Mr Holmes is known to Scotland Yard, as am I. Yes, Captain Dr John Watson. That brute has broken the girl’s arm: have her conveyed to the free ward at Barts. Here is my card to go with her. Holmes, sit DOWN. Here, little one, don’t cry: are you her sister? Molly? Do you have a mama, my lass? Only papa? Oh, I’m so sorry, pet. Take my handkerchief, there’s a good little lassie, and then you can go with your sister to the hospital, and wait there with her. Someone will be along shortly to take you to a safe place. Are there any more of you? Well get your brother too, and go with the constable there. Are you a family man, Constable, by any good chance? Excellent, here take this, and see them fed: I shall arrange for their safe keeping. Take the man too: he cannot be left like that. Free ward as well, on my card, Constable. Oh, thank God. I do not know where you have sprung from, boys, but you are welcome as the day. Billy, fetch us a cab, Mr Holmes has – no, he didn’t beat him to a bloody pulp, boy, this is not a boxing ring. Sam, go to Mrs Hudson, and tell her to send Janey in a cab to fetch these two children from Barts: God knows where she will put them for the night, but they must be housed somewhere. They have no mama, they cannot be left. Be QUIET, Holmes, do not even attempt to speak at this moment. Enough, I say.’

‘'m sorry,’ I said. My head was ringing, I could only see out of one eye, and my hand, when I wiped my chin, came away wet with blood. ‘Sorry, Watson.’

‘Quiet!’ he said again. ‘Thank you, gentlemen for coming to our assistance. I shall escort my friend home, and deal with his injuries. Sergeant, if you will call at the address on my card – here is another one for you and your colleague – I shall see the two of you rewarded for your kindness to the children. No, you can leave the man to me, but he must be cleaned up and have those ribs mended before that. Don’t cry, my little lassie, your sister will be well again soon. What is your brother’s name? Jack? Well, both of you go with the constable to the hospital and see your sister comfortable, then my Janey, and Mrs Hudson who looks after us will come and bring you home. Buy them something on the way, Constable, they look half starved. Billy, you’re an excellent lad, excellent. Come, Holmes, let me help you into the cab.’

‘'m sorry,’ I said again. ‘I don’t think I can – feel dizzy, Watson.’

‘You’re punch drunk, Holmes. Billy, bear a hand here.’

‘An’t never seen Mr ‘Olmes fight like that before, Dr Watson. Di’n’t think ‘e could, not like a right ‘un. Laid out ol’ Barker goo’ ‘n proper ‘e did, an’ ‘im twice the weight.’

Billy’s voice wavered in my head much as Watson’s stream of instructions and explanations had done. I was hauled to my feet, Watson’s solid arm around my waist and Billy’s hand under my elbow – my bruised elbow, I thought, stifling a groan.

‘Neither have I, Billy. Sounds like the man had it coming to him, from what you say. Come, Holmes, the cab is here. Lean on me, my dear, dear fellow, that’s the ticket. Let me take your weight. Billy, whom did you send to Mrs Hudson?’

‘Sent Sam to Miss ‘Udson, an’ Mags to Barts, Dr Watson. She can keep an eye on the littl’uns, make sure they’re not took away by the work’us. Good thin’ there’s allus one on us keeps an eye on yer, an’t it? You’d ‘a been right snookered wi’out. The folks round ‘ere di’n’t like Barker much, but they ‘ates swells buttin’ in even wuss. Dunno what Mr ‘Olmes were thinkin’ about, goin’ for ‘im like that. An’t none of ‘is business, what a man does to ‘is littl’uns, leastways, that’s ‘ow they look at it round ‘ere. You was lucky they di’n’t all ‘ave a go at ‘im.’

‘I know.’ Watson’s acknowledgement was a sigh. ‘But he came to my aid while I dealt with the girl, Billy. Mine was the fault in the first place. If I had not interfered . . .’

‘But you do, Doctor, thass what doctors do, an’t it? An’ Mr ‘Olmes, ‘e went at it like ‘e were spoiling fer a scrap. Las’ time I seen some’un do that, ‘e were looking fer a fight the minute ‘e walked in, an ‘e were blind drunk into th’bargain.’

‘I’m not drunk.’ It seemed very important to me that Watson knew this, but it was hard to get the words out. I was not sure he had heard me, though his arm tightened into an embrace.

‘Leastways, no ‘arm done. Mr ‘Olmes ‘as got it out of ‘is ‘ead now, an’ Barker’s ‘ad a bloody lesson, an’ I ‘spect you’ll be looking after the little’uns. So what’s the ‘arm in that? Although I dessay the bloke’d ‘ld ‘ave been better off with a job, then ‘e wu’n’t get so angry, see? You got ‘im, Doctor? ‘E’s green as sparrergrass: the jarvey wu’n’t be so ‘appy if ‘e casts up ‘is accounts in the ‘ansom.’

I was sure I could have corrected Billy’s world view, but the effort was too great. And being hauled into the cab was doing vile things to my queasy stomach.

‘I shall have to sacrifice my hat if he does.’ Watson’s tone was resigned. ‘Damn you, Holmes, could you not leave it to me to deal with the brute? All it needed was a pistol butt to the nose or collarbone, just enough to incapacitate. Thank you, Billy, I have him now. Dammit, I’ve given all my cash to that constable for the little ones. Make sure you and Sam and Mags come to Baker Street tomorrow, and I’ll see you get your fee, and some over. Good man. Drive on, cabbie.’

‘Don’t,’ I said, as we drove off, He was supporting me against him. My throbbing head rested on his sound shoulder, and his arms were around me.

‘Don’t what, Holmes?’

‘Don’t damn me. I promise I won’t vomit in your hat. I won’t do anything you don’t like. But please don’t damn me. I might already be damned: don’t make it worse.’

‘Hush,’ his hand left my shoulder and stroked down my cheek. ‘I’m not sure you’re entirely sensible, my poor Holmes. Close your eyes and rest: we shall be home directly, and then I shall bathe these wounds for you.’

‘I don’t deserve it.’ I turned my head further into his shoulder. ‘I don’t.’

‘Hush my dear,’ he repeated, and his arms tightened around me. ‘You’re upset because of this filthy business we’re embroiled in. I understand why you fought, Holmes. I have done so myself, gone in, fists flying, to heal my rage and pain. What you are feeling now, the sadness, that comes after too, because it is not right to do it, and we know it is not right. It’s done though, and cannot be undone now. I will deal with all. Let it go. Just rest, my dear, and let it go.’

‘My head feels odd. Wavering, as if I were under water.’

‘You hit it when you went down, I think. You broke his jaw when you finally laid him out – that was a sweet upper-cut - but he’s blacked your eye and split your lip for you. I shall have to look at your teeth when we get in. I saw you drop just after he did: you did well to stay the course for he was above both your weight and your reach. You were formidable, Holmes.’

‘It is because I thought he was going to hit you. Watson, if we are not there soon, I may need your hat. My stomach is most uneasy.’

‘If you close your eyes and be quiet as I bade you, my hat may yet be spared. You are the very devil for talking when I bid you be quiet.’

I remembered very little of the rest of the journey. Watson’s hat was indeed spared, but I was extremely sick in the privacy of our own home. After he had mended my bruises and cleaned my lip and eye, he helped me bathe and assisted me into bed. He stayed with me all night, waking me at intervals and asking the most ridiculous questions, I think to ensure that I was not becoming comatose. By morning, he seemed satisfied that I was on the mend, so he went off to his own room to nap, while I dozed, looked in on at intervals by Mrs Hudson.

I got up in the afternoon. By then, Watson had gone to Barts, whence he returned later having made interest with some of his Fabian friends for the safe-keeping of the children he had rescued. They were in need of it, he told me seriously, for their father was an incorrigible drunkard.

‘If he goes on as he has been, his life cannot be worth six-months purchase. But I feel sorry for the poor man: he could not manage after his wife died, took to drink, and then became harsh to his children.’ His mouth twisted. ‘It is a story I am not unfamiliar with, after all. Misery of that sort is not confined to the wealthy and educated any more than it was ever confined to the poor.’

‘I am sorry.’ I held out my hand from where I reclined on the sofa. ‘Will you sit with me, Watson? I should apologise for all the trouble I caused you, yesterday as well as last night. You have had so little rest.’

‘If it was a trouble, it was one we were in together, for I made the first move against the man. I will sit, but I do not want you reading yet, Holmes. And we must consider whether you are going to go on with this case if it is to sadden you so deeply.’

‘It was only that I had had such a black day. And it does sadden me. Man’s inhumanity to man: will it ever cease?’

‘No, in a word.’ He came to perch on the sofa, and I made room. ‘We can hold up a candle against the darkness, and that is all. But we can do it together, my dear Holmes. Now, what of this case?’

‘We must see it through.’

‘Very well then. But you must tell me if it is too much for you.’

*****

Cornwall, as we had expected, responded to the attack in the House with a writ. His libel case came to court on the second of July. Between mid-May, and that date, William O’Brien, and his compatriot, Tim Healy, wrote article after article accusing him, along with French and George Bolton, the English Crown Prosecutor for Ireland, of the vilest crimes, taunting him with his indiscretions, deriding his character – the language vitriolic and bitter. The unhappy Cornwall – by mid June, French’s feebly pressed libel case had been ruled as out of time, since he would not come to court – bore the brunt of it. He was accused of ‘felonious practices’. Of ‘detestable and abominable crimes’. Of ‘sins that should remain nameless’.

I had, as I said to Watson, no idea why the newspapers bothered to employ these circumlocutory devices: by referring to ‘the unnameable sin’ in the way they did, they effectively named it, and by July, only a child or an idiot could have been unaware that the case was to do with sodomy. Meiklejohn had not needed to fabricate evidence against any of the plaintiffs-in-prospect, however: it was there in plenty. Some witnesses he had failed to find, but all too many had succumbed to bribery, bullying and the threat of action taken against themselves. The case had grown monstrous: an entire echelon of society, covert, unsuspected by the masses, and therefore, suddenly, dangerous, was dragged into the open, and the public learned that it should be hated.

And yet, when the libel trial began,  because the ‘felonious practices’ were not named, only the circumstances in which they were carried out, the impression given was of men whose lives were spent in aimless wandering around a city of dreadful night, of men with lives that came to life only after decent men were in bed beside their wives. Cornwall, French, Kirwan – the men most aimed at – walked home together from concerts together. They walked to dinner engagements. They took cabs together before and after they walked, and in those cabs unspeakable and nameless events occurred. They rambled in parks, and through botanical gardens, where they most assuredly did not study the flowers, and into and out of clubs, theatres, hothouses and even each others’ houses like errant, ambulant suns attracting into their orbits the lesser planets of Malcolm Johnston, George Taylor, Malcolm McKiernan. Other, smaller satellites, circled them: the lowly young men of the street who sold themselves to these wanderers. There were looks, significant words, touches, embraces - a dance of small intimacies, all catalogued, investigated, expounded upon with prurient interest. Someone’s hand rested on a knee in a cab. There was an encounter under a holly tree. (Watson commented wryly that he could think of trees better suited for trysting under.) There were embraces in a dressing room. An embrace on a chair. Letters were written. (Cornwall’s letters – affectionate, pleading, amused, gently endearing – were read out in court.) Gifts of music were sent. Music. It hurt, that ‘musical’ should be turned into a term of abuse, a term synonymous with what was considered the vilest of crimes. ‘You are all musical all of you, are you not?’ commented the judge, and made it a condemnation. I touched my violin with a caressing hand: it was so dear to me, so very dear. I did not play it much at that time.

The mob delighted in the plaintiffs’ approaching downfall – for by the end of the second day it was clear that they would not succeed. The courts were packed each day. William O’Brien, swaggering into the court as if he owned it was cheered, praised, exalted. The lads whom Cornwall and Kirwan had had to do with were coerced before the judge in the mornings, reluctantly sober, and taken away at night to become inebriated in their captivity. Meiklejohn strutted and bragged. The judge made sarcastic comments, the lawyers squabbled, the jury members complained fretfully about the stink of the River Liffey flowing by their accommodation and the odious nature of the evidence to which they were forced to listen. And the newspapers in Ireland reported it all. (There were fewer column inches in England. Those wishing to use the trial to blacken England’s name had less authority over what its press reported. And what was reported in England was referred to as the ‘Dublin Affair’, making it firmly an Irish problem.)

Watson and I read the account of the libel case each night: I do not know why. I did not speak to him, nor he to me about the details. We did not discuss them. But every evening after dinner, he unfurled the newspaper and in a clipped, military, unexpressive voice, read out the day’s quota of bile from the United Irishman, and Freeman’s Journal. Every evening, I listened, comparing, with a sick fascination, those reported actions which found an echo in our own lives. Watson and I ‘rambled around for hours.’ We visited concerts together, walked home together. We traversed, at night, for the purposes of our case work, or Watson’s charities, those dreadful streets where vice ruled virtue. I played my violin to him. He sang around the house – not often, and only in an exceptionally good mood, but he sang, small snatches of North Country ballads - and I would listen, secretly, and delight in it. I had never laid my hand on his knee, never touched him with intent although we were familiar together. Watson and I had never made the beast with two backs. His mouth had never touched mine. But . . . but . . .

I was an invert, that much I knew. If I had desires, and although I had tried to suppress them, I had to own that I did have desires, then they were most certainly for men, since no woman had ever stirred my reluctant, timorous loins. Yet not ‘for men’. Nothing in the world would have tempted me to do as Cornwall had, as these men had. Nothing would have caused me to stretch out a hand to any chance passer by: it was for one man, for one man’s touch that I burned. If not he – and as the days of the trial dragged on, I saw that it could not be he, that it would never be he – then it would be no-one. I saw that I would live virgin until my death. He was my lodestone: my heart’s compass would point to no other North.

What did he think of when he read, I asked myself. What thoughts went on behind those blue eyes, shadowed now with hurt? What words lay unspoken behind that fine-cut mouth, shut now too often. He did not speak much, at that time. Only when we read the account of the last day of the trial, when Monroe, the Queen’s Counsel for poor Cornwall, made an allusion to the United Ireland article of the tenth of May which had initiated the libel case – an article in which O’Brien referred in scathing terms to Cornwall, as Damon, mourning his military Pythias, Kirwan, did Watson’s composure break. He threw down the paper, stood abruptly, and went to the window. For a while he gazed into the street, then his hand went to cover his eyes. I could not move. I dared not speak.

‘Holmes,’ he said, painfully, after a silence that had stretched out too long.

One word. I rose and went to him.

‘Watson. John.’

‘What these men did is not wrong. If there is love, and consent, it is not wrong.’

‘I do believe that.’

‘You are still Damon to me, Sherlock. My noble senator. My heart’s blood.’

‘And you my Pythias, John. My gallant soldier and fast friend. My halved heart.’

He turned then, and held out his hands to me, a pleading, hesitant gesture. I walked into his arms and they closed about my waist. My arms encircled him. His forehead was bowed to my shoulder, my cheek rested on his hair, and so we stood, silent, for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since First I Saw Your Face: Part 8 Notes
> 
>  
> 
> Holmes’ travels in Tibet, India, Persia and Arabia are documented briefly in EMPT: I have given him a reason for being there which sorts with the politics of the day. He is playing ‘the Great Game’ the intense rivalry between Britain and Russia in the Middle East and India. So is Moran.
> 
>  
> 
> J. D. Singh College in Karachi still exists. Moses Jackson, the man A.E. Housman, author of ‘A Shropshire Lad’, loved for his whole life with an unwanted and unrequited devotion was the Principal there when Holmes was visiting.
> 
>  
> 
> Jackson’s words about the college – of which he was the extremely successful principal: he wasn’t an unpleasant character, just completely straight – are from a letter of his.
> 
>  
> 
> The ‘shivering, sad-eyed young man’ is Housman who, a week after the Labouchère amendment, and some sort of a conversation with Jackson in which he appears to have revealed his feelings, went missing for a week much to the consternation of Jackson and his brother with whom Housman shared rooms. Of course they would turn to Holmes to find him, which he duly did. No doubt we shall discover how in due course.
> 
>  
> 
> Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act made consenting homosexual activity illegal even in private. The reasons for this amendment are directly connected to the political events of the previous two years.
> 
>  
> 
> When I re-read Petrarch’s sonnets, I realised exactly how significant it is that ACD makes Holmes read them. They are desperately moving on the subject of unattainable or lost love. All of ACD’s choices for Homes’ and Watson’s reading can be read as significant: there is a high proportion of love poetry.
> 
>  
> 
> Musgrave was, of course, in a compromised position with regard to Brunton, that much is clear from subtext. ‘The English Vice’ is flagellation.
> 
>  
> 
> The Count of Monte Cristo: Dumas’ masterpiece. A plot twist in the story becomes a plot twist in SFISYF later on. Watson quotes Samuel Johnson ‘the Great Lexicographer’ on John Donne: the metaphysical poets were deeply unpopular at this point.
> 
>  
> 
> “If it were now to die . . .” Holmes (mis) quotes Othello: the quote should read ‘for I fear my soul hath her content so absolute that not another comfort like to this succeeds in unknown fate.’
> 
>  
> 
> All characters and events relating to the Earl of Euston’s divorce proceeedings, the ‘Trial of the Detectives’ and the ‘Dublin Castle Scandals’ of 1883/4 are accurate and attested by evidence in the newspaper reports of the libel trials, police records, the records of the trials themselves, and, where parliament is referenced, Hansard. 
> 
>  
> 
> Holmes and Watson have been reading (as well as Monte Cristo) the Irish playwright, John Banim’s 1821 play Damon and Pythias, about one of the most celebrated homoerotic couples of Classical history. Their friendship was seen as a model for how two men should support and cherish each other. Despite both, as would have been a matter of course in Ancient Greece, being married, their primary emotional relationships is with each other.
> 
>  
> 
> Dublin Jack. Bless him, he needs a story all to himself. William O’Brien comes across badly in this story, which is necessarily seen from Holmes’ (and Mycroft’s) perspective.
> 
>  
> 
> Watson’s quote from Juvenal translates roughly as ‘the surgeon called in to lance your piles laughs at the sight of that well-used passage.'
> 
>  
> 
> It was believed by some doctors that it was possible to tell whether someone had committed sodomy - or alternatively were in the habit of sodding other men - by looking at the shape of the anus and the size of the penis. However, most doctors, knowng that proven sodomy meant penal servitude for life, were extremely reluctant to make a determination, so unless caught in the act, as Watson says, the suspected perpetrators were likely to be acquitted.
> 
>  
> 
> Thomas Ernest Boulton (Stella) and Frederick William Park (Fanny) were two Victorian cross-dressers and suspected homosexuals who appeared as defendants in a celebrated trial in London in 1871, charged "with conspiring and inciting persons to commit an unnatural offence". After the prosecution failed to establish that they had anal sex, which was then a crime, or that wearing women's clothing was in any sense a crime, both men were acquitted. The trial accounts are fascinating.
> 
>  
> 
> 1884 is an interesting year in Canon because there is NOTHING written about it. One has to assume, therefore, that Holmes and Watson were engaged in events about which Watson dared not write. I hope that why this was becomes clear. If not, it should become clearer in Parts 9 and 10.


	9. 1884 Redux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning for strong suicidal ideation. (No attempt) Please do what it takes to stay safe, and seek help if you need to - or come and chat to me on Tumblr if you need to ask for more detail.

**Since First I Saw Your Face   Part 9**

**Holmes, disembarking from his transport, gazes with some distaste at the mean streets of Bushire. There is little to be seen here of the Persia of poets and princes for which he has hoped. Although the British Residency is a fine building, with two courts, and is surrounded by the principal European and British houses and places of business, most of them two-storeyed, stone built, and with airy verandahs facing the sea, the majority of the bazaar streets he traverses are narrow and filthy. A little way away, on the shore, are encampments of low tents and kapars, huts made from date sticks and leaves: the domiciles of the lower classes of the population. The port is bustling – its inadequate, shallow anchorage crowded with British steamers discharging their cargo from India via light sloops that are the only means of attaining the shore. (The inner harbour has become inaccessible because a sand bar has formed across its mouth, Holmes has been told by the captain of his rickety transport, but the Persians will not pay to dredge it. The captain is of the opinion that the British should never have ceded the port to Persia in ’57: it would have been better administered, he tells Holmes, if it were not done by the natives. Holmes disagrees. In his experience so far, the British administration is slow and ineffectual. And a native saved his life.)**

**Holmes has put on Sigerson again. His Urdu is fair, enough for him to pass as a Tibetan hillman in India, but neither his Arabic, nor his Farsi are good enough to appear as anyone other than a European. Better to be Sigerson than to run the risk of exposure. It may seem unwise, but if all goes according to plan, then as Sigerson he will be able to meet Moran face to face in an environment where Moran cannot touch him, and ask the questions he needs to ask. But he dare not meet the man alone. His back has healed – more or less. The scar is ugly, a lumpy, jagged gash, and one end still seeps a thin, blood-stained fluid. Intermittent fevers rack him, and his ribs stand out. If it were to come to a fight between him and Moran, he knows he would not win.**

**He wonders, waiting in the residency for Adelbert Talbot, the British Resident, how far this most important of Moran’s contacts in Persia will support him. Talbot may still shelter Moran for his father’s sake: Sir Augustus Moran, quondam minister to Persia was known for loyalty, sound judgement, and a sense of fair play. Had his son not come under the influence of James Moriarty, he too might have gained such a reputation. Instead, he made India too hot to hold him, and is in a fair way to do so in English society. In Persia, however he still has the entrée.**

**Holmes stands as Talbot, an imposing figure with a full, grey beard enters the lobby. He expected to be summoned, not to have the most important British official in Bushire come out to meet him.**

**‘So you’re Sigerson are yer? M’ friend Moran’s told me about yer. Said yer might be visitin’. I don’t know what y’want, but y’won’t get it here.’**

**It is a shockingly discourteous greeting. Holmes is surprised.**

**‘I am merely seeking a meeting with Colonel Moran, Your Excellency. I wished to interview him about some of his experiences in Chitral. He is an acknowledged expert. But I have found him hard to track down, I confess.’**

**‘Perhaps that should be a lesson to yer that he don’t want to see yer. Colonel Moran’s not told me y’re a whatever yer call y’self. Says y’re a spy for the Russians. Anyway, I’ve no time for nonsense. This Qatari business’s takin’ up all m’time at the moment.’**

**‘If you would allow me to present my letter of recommendation, Sir, you would see that the Colonel may be misinformed.’ Holmes tenders the official document that was delivered to him in Karachi. ‘It is signed by Lord Rosebery, by the Foreign Secretary himself, Sir. He wishes the benefit of Colonel Moran’s experience in the Afghanistan question; that is why he sent me.’**

**It is not quite a lie. Rosebery certainly knows of the letter. Just not of its exact wording.**

**‘Rosebery! Damned snob queer: m’friend Queensberry thinks he’s a cad and a rotter, messin’ around with young Drumlanrig. Only good thing the man’s ever done is tell me to deal with this business in Qatar. Anyway, yer can’t see Colonel Moran. He’s not here – gone to Shiraz. Get along with yer, I’ve no time.’**

**‘Sir, may I beg you to read the letter. I was charged most straitly to deliver it.’ Holmes stands tall, attempting to look authoritative. For a moment he thinks he will have to admit defeat, then Talbot’s bushy brows draw together, and he takes the letter.**

**‘Come with me, damn yer.’**

**Holmes follows him into an office strewn with stacks of papers: it is, he thinks, a monument to this man’s inability to cope with the requirements of his position. Lansdowne, the vice-regent of India, to whom Talbot is answerable, suffers from a similar inability: under his ineffectual governance the Raj is slowly sliding into chaos, with rising tension between Hindu and Muslim. Talbot opens the letter and reads. He raises his eyebrows at one point, and gives Holmes a hard stare. Holmes stares back, flint in his gaze. He has not worked for so long, and travelled so far, to be balked now. If he can meet Moran and speak to him, the man may yet be turned.**

**‘I’ll give yer safe conduct to Shiraz, as requested. Yer can meet Colonel Moran there, if he’s willin, but I’ll have no hand in settin’ it up. Meanwhile I’m to give yer access to the diplomatic bag for correspondence, it appears. And the telegraph. Where are yer stayin’?**

**‘At Bayt Safar,’ murmurs Holmes. The house of the wealthy – wealthier than the British Resident – Safar family stands only a few steps away from the Residency. Agha Muhammad Rahmin, who has succeeded to his father’s dignity relatively recently, and John Zaytun, his Christian trading partner, are expecting his visit. It is clearly something of a surprise to Talbot that ‘Sigerson’ is so well connected. ‘I have business with them. And also with Agha Muhammad Karim Sharif, the munshi. I can arrange passage to Shiraz with them, Sir, if that is easier.’**

**‘I have to settle this Qatari business: Moran’s information can’t wait,’ says Talbot. ‘What else d’yer want, Sigerson? Best be off t’yer merchant friends if there’s nothin’ more I can do f’yer.’**

**There is a sneer in his voice, and bidding him a courteous farewell, Holmes realises, as he leaves the residency, that this man has a very different opinion of the wealthy and influential merchants of the Safar and Sharif families – all of them of Persian stock, all of them educated and affiliated to the British Empire – than his predecessor, the much-lamented Colonel Sir Edward Ross. Had Ross been in office, Holmes thinks, Moran would never have gained any ascendancy here, but would have been seen for what he truly is – the unworthy son of an excellent father, and a man whose sole purpose in this volatile political arena is to work for Russian, not British advantage. Why Moran, an army officer, ever betrayed his country and threw in his lot with Moriarty, why he agreed to be Moriarty’s chief of staff in India, Afghanistan and Persia, Holmes has no idea. The man has pursued him relentlessly since Reichenbach, has sent assassins to kill him, has proved obdurate to all attempts at reason, and to what avail? For what purpose? Holmes cannot believe the man is actuated, like Iago, by motiveless malignity, but equally he cannot see a motive for such depths of treachery. In Moriarty’s case there was an obvious reason. For Moran, other than personal loyalty to Moriarty, there appears to be none. The inconsistency nags at Holmes, itching like his unhealed wound.**

**At Bayt Safar, Holmes presents his other letter of recommendation, and is greeted very differently: after he has been shown to his room, bathed, refreshed, and his wound treated by a concerned physician, he reclines on a divan smoking a nargileh while Muhammad Karim explains in astoundingly accurate English the problem of Sebastian Moran, and Adelbert Talbot.**

**‘He has persuaded His Excellency, Lieutenant Colonel Talbot that it is appropriate to intervene in the dispute between Qatar and the Sultan, Abdul Hamid. As you know, it would be in Moran’s interests for the entente between England and Turkey to fail. If they are at odds, it can only strengthen Russia’s position. The issue between Sheikh Jasim and Turkey is a purely internal one: he accepted the protection of Turkey for Qatar: he cannot now resile from it. Why then should Britain intervene?’**

**‘The Prime Minister himself believes it appropriate to intervene: Qatar, after all, is under British protection in the Gulf; if it were not for our warships there would be no trade, and piracy would be rife, moreover Abdul Hamid appears to have acted tyrannically. Although it is true that he lost the battle in March.’**

**Muhammad Karim shrugs. ‘Moran is persuasive. He has fed Talbot many plausible lies, and Talbot yearns to prove himself politically. Sir Edward’s shoes are not easily filled and Talbot has achieved little of value since he took office. He has transmitted Moran’s lies to London as they suit his purpose, and at such a distance it is not easy to discern the truth. Your Prime Minister is deceived. If he allows Lieutenant-Colonel Talbot to interfere in a minor dispute between Qatar and Turkey, he will offend both. And Turkey does not love Russia, but neither does it love England.’**

**‘What do you think?’ Holmes is curious. ‘What do you think of Britain’s presence here? In India, in Persia, in Afghanistan? What do you think?’**

**‘I think that ‘ch’i ‘hu nan hsia pei’ as the Chinese proverb goes. He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount. Britain is riding the tiger of empire. If she dismounts, it will turn and rend her. To keep India as the jewel in her crown, Britain must safeguard her from Russia. Turkey, Afghanistan, Persia are all India’s guards, and so England must meddle and meddle to keep one off balance against the other. I am a part of that, Mr Sigerson, and so are you. And so is Colonel Sebastian Moran. He is a dangerous man, you know. I would not have to do with him myself.’**

**‘I know it. One of his assassins came near to ending me. But I must persevere: it is my duty. In Shiraz is a young man whom I believe, can help me to a meeting with him, so thither I go, like a leaf on a stream, carried resistless by the will of my political masters. Your English is excellent, by the way, and your command of idiom impressive – were you schooled there?’**

**‘And the poetry of your words is almost Persian. Eton.’ The munshi’s eyes darken. ‘I was schooled at Eton. It was not a happy time. Certainly of idiom – and idiots – I learned much. You are not English yourself, are you?’**

**‘Norwegian,’ Holmes lies. ‘But I was well tutored. How soon can you make arrangements for me to leave for Shiraz?’**

**‘The day after tomorrow. It will take about fourteen days, and I will see that you are properly clad. The high passes are cold at night. Now if you will excuse me, I will retire. Is there anything else I can do for you?’**

**‘I must retrieve my correspondence. There are telegrams, and letters in the diplomatic bag I believe, from – England’ he says, tripping over the unspoken ‘home’.**

**‘That has been done for you,’ Muhammad Karim stands. ‘I shall have them sent to your room, and we will meet again at the evening meal.’**

**‘Thank you.’ Holmes rises and bows. ‘I am grateful for your courtesy and for your hospitality.’**

**His host returns the bow. ‘This is an old country, Mr Sigerson. Persians have always been courteous and hospitable. Maybe in some cases too courteous, and too hospitable. We should, perhaps, have turned the great Alexander away from our gates, and retained our empire. And perhaps we should have done so with modern Alexanders also. But you, Mr Sigerson - it was your Viking ancestors who conquered the country that has conquered ours. You were more fortunate than we were.’**

*********

**_My dear Sherlock, how very exigent you are,_ ** **begins Mycroft’s letter. _Can you possibly believe that I have nothing better to do than report on your erstwhile companion? Is it not enough that I have half the weight of the government on my shoulders without the added burden of Dr John Watson? I told you in my last that his wife approaches her end: he appears wholly consumed by her suffering and his, and rarely stirs from the house. However, the novel he perpetrated last year and his stories have been published to no small acclaim - not that he cares a jot for their fate. He is entirely indifferent to money or fame, it would seem._**

**_For myself, I am constantly in attendance on my Lord Rosebery. Many questions have been asked about the conduct of our armies in India, and there has been discontent over the excess of expenditure over land revenue from the continent: (Rosebery’s recent decision vis-à-vis intervention between Turkey and Qatar can only add to the cost and exacerbate matters: I am endeavouring to ensure Talbot’s removal from office and his replacement with a man rather less under Moran’s sway.) The government appears to be completely incapable of comprehending that as the Israelites under Pharaoh failed to make bricks without straw, so the collectors of tithes and taxes in India cannot take revenue from an area that labours under adverse weather conditions and has consequently failed to produce crops upon which tithes and taxes can be levied. I tell the members of Parliament that the Empire is merely an empire: it is not God, and cannot direct the weather. Equally I tell them  - but they remain unconvinced -  that the salt tax has a direct impact on cholera in Bengal, and should be remitted – I am glad, brother, that you are not in that swampy and desolate region. To add to our troubles there are reports that the British army posts in Kachin country on the Burmese border have repelled incursions by the Chinese: if we are obliged to fight on all fronts in this way, I fear we will suffer the fate of Rome. We are over-stretched, and under-armed._ **

**_Forgive me, brother, I am much tried at the present time – not least because of Rosebery’s infatuation with young Drumlanrig, which is turning heads in social, as well as political circles. I cannot persuade him to caution. And Drumlanrig’s father, that brute, Queensberry, is loud and blustering, and therefore causes damage of the implications of which he has no conception.  One might have thought that with the Cleveland Street Affair only four years in the past, and poor Arthur Somerset’s debacle, Rosebery would be cautious, but alas, he is not. Those of us of his ilk labour under the stigma of our needs, and dare not be open. I long, I confess, for my Juventus’ company, but we do not dare to share quarters. It is too perilous. I am glad that you averted any danger from yourself and Dr Watson, although I understand what it cost you._ **

**_With regard to that, my dear brother, and in some small recompense for your absence and the many pains you have undergone, I assure you that your Doctor remains your more than devoted friend and admirer. Whatever the outcome – and no outcome is certain – I do truly believe that he holds you in the very highest affection and esteem. I am in hopes that on your return, for you will return, Sherlock - you must return, and soon - it will once more be possible for him to return to Baker Street and to your company. His status as a widower – for such he will assuredly be by then – will, I am sure, protect you from the adverse comment and suspicion that now attends men who share rooms with another fellow._ **

**_Addendum: I re-open this to enclose within it something of Watson’s writing. It may solace your heart to know yourself so beloved: it will also wring it for his grief. Do not let it derail you from our purpose, however, or I shall regret sending it.  And ask me not how it fell into my hands, but know that I take great care of your little band of street urchins, for old times sake, and for the kindness you bore to them. Mrs Hudson is also well cared for. I have paid her generously to retain your old quarters unchanged, so that they may be ready against your return. She thinks me sentimental, no doubt, which is far from the truth. I think merely of the practicalities, of course, in preparing thus._ **

**_With regard to my imbecilic infants, alas, a man must use the tools to hand. I concur with your preference for intelligent men of the country, but they do not have the entrée everywhere, and are thus debarred from some means of enquiry. Console yourself with the fact that there is a never ending supply of infants only too ready to lay down their lives in the service of Her Majesty, and that one more or less is neither here nor there, save perhaps to their parents._ **

**_Do endeavour not to encounter any more assassins yourself, Sherlock. The loss of your gifts would be a pity; the loss of your person rather more._ **

**_The estate goes on well. It is April weather with us, of course: how I envy you the blue skies of Persia._ **

**_I remain, my dear Sherlock, your affectionate brother, Mycroft._ **

**_Post Scriptum: needless to state, I will have him carefully watched for you, and intervene if necessary. Do not distress yourself unduly: my reach is long._ **

**Holmes turns to the somewhat crumpled and dog-eared enclosure, and opens it, smoothing it mechanically before reading. Then he stops, and raises the paper to his nose. There is the faintest possible odour of tobacco – Watson’s beloved old Arcadia mix. He folds the paper into a smaller compass and holds it in cupped hands, breathing in the scent of home. Vividly present to his mind’s eye, he sees Watson at his desk, writing. His penmanship is exquisite, unlike Holmes’ own untidy scrawl, it is pointed, Italianate, regular, with a neat forward slant, and regular curves and flourishes. Watson was made, at school, to write with his right hand, but reverted to his natural left, when training as a surgeon. ‘Because I was more handy with it,’ he says, ‘and my suturing was neater. But I cannot write for too long now, not with this damn shoulder. I should have stuck to my right.’ Watson smiles at him. ‘Pass my pipe, old chap. I’m nearly done here.’**

**He is almost afraid to open the letter.**

**_My dear Holmes . . ._ **

**Now he is afraid to read on.**

**_My dear Holmes . . ._ **

**‘My dear Watson’, he whispers, closing his eyes. ‘My dear fellow.’**

**_My dear Sherlock, ~~I cannot. I mi . . .~~    ~~Even though~~    ~~I do not in the least know why I am~~.    Sherlock, I cannot go on like this. I wish I had understood, but I was so blind. For all that we talked, and I explained, and assured you that it did not matter in the least, for all that I offered comforting platitudes to Trevelyan, and poor young Housman, and a score of others, I still did not see. ~~~~_**

**I did not see. Holmes shivers.**

**_I did not see, and now it is too late, for you are dead. There is nothing more to be done. There would have been nothing more to be done in any case ~~, for I married, and one cannot cheat~~   so why do I torture myself like this? You are gone, and soon she will be gone. There is no hope for her; the disease is eating her from the inside out. And you are gone, bones now, tumbled in the uncaring waters. _ **

**_When she is gone, there will be no-one. But it was you. It was always you, Holmes. I didn’t know. But it was always you. And you died._ **

**_“Low in thy grave with thee, happy to lie,”  Holmes, my dear Holmes._ **

**_“Since there’s no greater thing left Love to do.” I should have died then. But._ **

**_“And to live after thee is but to die, for with but half a soul, what can Life do.” My twinned soul. My Damon, my Jonathan. Sherlock. I can’t go on._ **

**_“So share thy victory, or else thy grave,” Soon. It will be soon._ **

**_“Either to rescue thee, or with thee lie.” I did not do the first. I failed. But I will do the second. When I am released. As soon as I am released. I tried, Mary. I am sorry. And perhaps, perhaps if we had, maybe if there’d been a child . . . but you never wanted – who I was. I’m sorry for that, Mary. That I wasn’t – what you thought._ **

**_“Ending that life for thee,” I should have done. I should have died then. At Reichenbach. At the falls._ **

**_“That thou didst save,” I would have died, did you know that, Holmes? I was so close. So very close that day we met. But you made me want to live, and so I did. And then . . . and then. I tried, Holmes. I thought you wanted me to go away. God knows you pushed. I should never have let myself. Even if  . . . even if._ **

**_“So Death that sundereth might bring more nigh.” Soon, Sherlock. It’s a lonely place, but I won’t be alone. Will you have waited? If I call you, will you hold out your hand? I want to see your face. I think I must have – since first I saw your face, I think I . . ._ **

**_“Peace, peace, my stricken lute, thy strings are sleeping.” There will be silence there, after the sound of the waters. ‘Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the seas drown it.’ I can’t go on, Sherlock. You don’t want me to go on, do you? Could you have missed me? Would there be a place for me at your side still?_ **

**_“Would that my heart could still its bitter weeping.”_ **

**_The most bitter tears are those we dare not shed. I could not wear mourning. I could not show it. I did not mourn you as one mourns a friend, Sherlock. I mourned you as one mourns a spouse. You called me your halved heart. But you were mine, and not as the friend you meant. I was not faithful to you in life, but I will be faithful in death. Ending that life for thee, that thou didst save, so death that sundereth, might bring more nigh. Soon, Sherlock  - and forgive me. Forgive me, my dear fellow._ **

**Holmes’ hands shake as he folds the paper.**

**“The most bitter tears are those we dare not shed.” he says. ‘John. Will you ever forgive me, John?’**

*****

It was a dark summer, 1884. Shortly after Cornwall’s libel trial, he was arrested, as were Kirwan, French, and some others, and charged with the crime of sodomy, on the basis of evidence that had been heard in the libel trial. Kirwan and Cornwall were charged with conspiracy to procure men for immoral purposes as well. The boys to whom we had, eventually, spoken – William Clarke, and Michael McGrane, and another, Patrick Molloy - were called as witnesses. Malcolm Johnston went off to Ireland to stand as a witness as convinced of his own unassailable status as he had been when we met him. Alfred McKiernan and Graham Taylor were kept in custody ‘for their own safety’. Jack Saul was tracked down – not by Meiklejohn, but by Chief Superintendent Mallon of the Dublin Constabulary. He too, like Meiklejohn, had been under suspicion for bribing a witness, on whose evidence he had sent five men to the gallows, and one wondered whether these ‘gamekeepers’ were more venal than the ‘poachers’ they pursued. Watson was thoughtful for days after Jack’s capture. So too was I, for he was a likeable young man, and it would take a hard heart to be indifferent to his charm.

The trial was set for August, and we awaited its beginning with trepidation. I was able, with Watson’s help, to gather enough evidence of Meiklejohn’s intimidation and coercion of witnesses, blackmail of suspects, and attempts to rig the jury, to offer Mycroft at least the opportunity of stripping the prosecution’s main witness hunter of his credibility, but there was so much evidence that there were, in fact, numerous men in Ireland, just as there were in England, who committed acts with each other that were punishable by a lifetime of penal servitude, that we could not hope to stave off a trial. Public sentiment demanded it: outrage was the order of the day. Politically motivated – and justifiable - hatred of the oppressor would bring the defendants to court. But they were scapegoats for their political masters, and would be ruined for something they could no more change than they could change the colour of the hair they were born with.

And for the rest, we were truly in Limbo – a Dantean place: _“non avea pianto ma’ che di sospiri, che l’aura eterna facevan tremare”_ where there was no lamentation save sighs which quivered on the eternal air. Life went on under this looming shadow. I pursued cases and chemistry. Watson assisted me, wrote, doctored his poor and maimed. We dined out, sat by the fire, read, smoked. We walked together, early and late. Very occasionally he would place a hand on my arm, look earnestly at me, and I would offer a brief – it was always brief – chaste embrace. Now and again I would hold out a hand to him before he retired. When he smiled at me, I would go to him and receive his kiss upon my brow. But it was done in silence, and there was no more: in this more personal Limbo, like Dante’s souls Pagan and unsaved, I lived without hope forever in desire: _“che sanza speme vivemo in disio.”_

I had few cases – I did not need them in truth: I had been well paid for the Meiklejohn business -  and spent my time reading, and working at my chemistry. Watson was much occupied in June and July with Lestrade’s daughter, Polly. He had not forgotten – when did he ever forget a child? – about the little girl who, in Lestrade’s words ‘did not thrive’. He visited her early and late, caring for her most tenderly, and brushing aside Lestrade’s gruff offers of payment and thanks. 

‘Is she no better?’ I asked, as he returned home one evening, looking worn and weary. ‘Hand me your wet jacket, my dear fellow and I will hang it up for you. Mrs Hudson has made lemonade: it will be here directly with some tea. Your slippers are by the fire, and here is your dressing gown and your pipe.'

‘Thank you, my dear Holmes. I meant to buy tobacco,’ he said, riffling through his pockets and taking his pouch out, ‘this is empty - but the summer rain is so heavy I simply came straight home. No, she is no better. It is tubercular disease of the hip, and that does not cure easily. Poor little girl, it is no wonder she is fretful and peevish: she is worn to a thread-paper with pain from the cold abscesses in the bone, and the hip is beginning to abduct which will add spinal problems to her woes. Lestrade is very patient and gentle with her, but of course he is not home often. I would like to get her into the Alexandra Hospital for hip disease in children, but it is so hard to get a bed. I have spoken with Howard Marsh, the Director – I know him from Barts of course, since he works there also – but they are not flush with money at the moment. A bed’s space might be found with ease, but the endowment for nursing that goes with it is another matter. She might need it for a year or more, and then a convalescent home afterwards for a few months.’

‘But she could be cured? And can it not be done at home?’

‘Many are cured, with proper treatment, but rarely at home. You have not visited Lestrade, Holmes, nor would I wish you to, for he would be embarrassed to receive you. The house is small, and there are more children than rooms. And Mrs Lestrade is pulled all ways at once with all of them, so the poor little girl sits neglected in the corner by the fire, or drags herself with a crutch from her chair to her bed. She cannot receive the care she needs at home. And as for Lestrade, I have never been more ashamed of myself in my life than when I went there. He does not live in squalor, it is true; it is clean and well-furnished, and of plain, good food there is plenty, but he has the necessities only, and small comfort. I wonder at his patience and carefulness: he certainly receives little enough reward for being an honourable and hard working man. If I could take the burden of the little one off him, I would feel I was doing him a true kindness.’

‘I did not realise he was struggling, Watson. He has been kind to me, and it is true, he is an honourable man. How much would it take to place the child in a bed, to give her a chance of a cure?’

‘A cot can be endowed for thirty pounds a year, Holmes, but one would want a little more than that so that after a year or so, the child could go to one of the convalescent homes in the country, and also so that her parents could visit her at intervals. Say forty, to be on the safe side. I have looked at my bank account, but I cannot rise to all of that at the moment.’

‘But we might try together, do you not think?’ I placed his dressing gown round his shoulders. ‘I shall perhaps discuss Lestrade’s contribution to our investigations recently with my friend in government, and see whether he can do anything. He is wealthy enough in all conscience. If he can offer us Romanée Conti and Chablis, he can certainly rise to a contribution for a bed for Lestrade’s little one - in fact I would rather that he should.’

‘You are a good man, Holmes.’ He rested his hand on my shoulder for a moment. ‘Thank you, my dear. She is so patient, poor little lassie, and I suppose I have a fellow feeling for her, being lame myself.’

‘If I have become a good man it is by living with one,’ I replied. ‘Do not call yourself lame, Watson, You are not lame. Nor infirm, nor sickly.’

‘When I am old, I shall be very lame indeed: there will come a point where this leg will deteriorate.’ He walked to the door, and opened it, ‘Oh, what would we do without you, Mrs Hudson? You come most pat upon your hour.’

‘Hmmph.’ She looked at him sharply. ‘Have you been fretting your heart out over that child of Lestrade’s again, Doctor? You cannot save them all, you know. Did she eat my chicken and rice broth that you took her?’

‘She did,’ he assured her, taking the tray she had brought in and setting it down, ‘and relished it very much. Mrs Lestrade said she had not seen her eat so well for days, and sent her thanks to you. She said you were very kind, and so you are.’

‘I pity any poor wretch with eight children and only a feckless man for support,’ she said, with what I can only describe as a snort. ‘Not that he’s a bad man, but he’s a man, when all’s said and done. It’s a crying shame the poor woman has no sister, nor her mother alive to help her out. Well, I shall have a good strong calves-foot jelly for you to take to little Polly tomorrow, a jelly with plenty of lemon and sugar in it. But I shall not give it to you unless you eat a good dinner yourself, and take a rest now.’

‘Yes, Mrs Hudson,’ he said, meekly, and I smiled, for she treated him so like a son. Their mutual adoration was a pretty thing to see: he was gentle and deferential, and she was fondly scolding. To say truth she mothered us both, although I was a poor subject for it. Watson had known a kind mother before all went to evil in his life, but I had not. I was unapt to affection: though I was grateful for Mrs Hudson’s kindness, I did not know how to return it, other than with the occasional gift of a day out, or a holiday, or money for a new bonnet or some such feminine frippery. Watson was better at it than I, as he was always with women. Perhaps he feared them less.

She left us then with the promise of dinner later, and I made haste to cosset him as much as I could, with a dash of brandy in his tea, my best tobacco in his pipe and his chair drawn up to the fire. But much later, when I had played him up the stairs to bed at the end of an evening of reading our Dumas, I whistled one of the ever-present lads to the window, and sent him off with a telegram for Mycroft. Let him put our money to good use for once, I reflected. I wanted none of the filthy stuff: let it bring happiness where it might.

‘Will you have the sour news or the sweet first?’ I asked Watson, a few days later.

 He eyed me carefully – I loved to see him trying to use my own methods on me – and then grimaced. ‘I deduce that there is more of sour than of sweet, Holmes. Perhaps I had better take my bitters first, like a good boy. Tell me what it is, old chap, for a trouble shared is a trouble halved, as the saying goes, and if it is sour news then I’ll not let you bear it alone.’

‘The sour is that the Cornwall case comes to trial tomorrow,’ I told him. ‘And it will be in all the papers. Hard things will be said, and some of them we know of. I do not like it, and neither do you, that men are being targeted through their personal lives for political gain. I am afraid of where this mob hatred may lead, Watson. I am deeply concerned.  Also sour is that the Reform bill has failed in the Lords, and the Queen has instructed Mr Gladstone that she thinks it folly to give votes to the working classes. I gather that she writes almost daily to reprove him, poor man, and to excoriate him for not replying to her letters, but that he has had his people explain to her that he has neither the time nor the eyesight to read everything he is sent. There will be no votes for women, and no universal suffrage for men. There is still hope, however: we may yet prevail upon the lords to a degree, and achieve something.’

‘ _We_?’ Watson questioned me. There was a gleam in his eye despite the poor news. ‘Holmes, my dear, dear fellow, where is the thorough-going Tory squire with whom I used to share a room? He has been replaced by this very liberal chap now speaking to me, it would appear. I like him much better.’ And he smiled at me.

‘Confound it, Watson, must you take me up on every little word? Well then, I am perhaps no longer such a Tory sympathiser as I was. You have corrupted my politics dreadfully with your advocacy on behalf of the ignorant and unwashed.’

‘Better your politics than your morals,’ he said, sober again. ‘And if they are ignorant and unwashed all the more reason it should fall to those who can to educate and cleanse them. **_I_** have not forgotten Ignorance and Want hiding in the cloak of Christmas Present, my dear fellow, even if you have. But I do not believe you have. You are a kind man, Holmes, even if you would rather not appear one. Is that all your budget of news? What more is there of sour, before I receive my bon-bon at the end to take away the taste?’

‘I must go to Antwerp.’

‘Antwerp! For a case I presume.’ He was frowning now. ‘And I cannot accompany you?’

‘Now why would you deduce that?’

‘Your use of the first person singular, Holmes. Had I been invited to accompany you, you would have used the plural, my dear fellow; therefore I understand that it is a matter of some delicacy where my presence might be deleterious to the outcome.’

‘I am afraid to say that it _is_ a matter of delicacy. I have been asked to investigate the provenance of some diamonds, by a merchant in the city who finds that he is continually being undercut in price by a new firm: Wynert and Company. I do not want to go on my own, Watson, for two reasons, the first being that I am more comfortable in your company than out of it, and the second that it means I must work without a trusted companion – something to which I have become accustomed. I regret it, but I do not see any way of you accompanying me.’

‘When do you go?’ His tone was light, but his brow was still creased. ‘Must it be soon? Imminently?’

No, in fact, time is not of the essence. I need to wait until the merchant for whom I am working is told by his Dutch colleagues that Wynert and Company is expecting another shipment through Amsterdam to Antwerp. Only then can I make enquiries.’

‘Very well: when did you last use a gun, Holmes? A pocket pistol or a revolver? I shall ensure you practice with mine, and you can take that.’

‘But it was my gift to you,’ I protested. ‘And Watson, I really cannot go to Belgium or Holland expecting to shoot my way out of trouble: one is not in the American West, but a civilised country.’

‘If there are suspect diamonds, then there will be trouble. If you go, Holmes, and without me, then my gun goes with you, and I shall see you shoot it before you go.’ His blue eyes were fierce. ‘Pray do not make me dispute this any further, Holmes. My mind is quite made up.’

I could do nothing but acquiesce: he was formidable when he put on that attitude, used that tone of voice. ‘Very well, Watson, your gun will go with me if you cannot. I am sorry, my dear fellow. But there is some sweet to mellow the bitter, you know.’

‘Is there?’ His smile was a mere ghost of its usual self. ‘Let me have it, then, for that is three bitter pills you have given me, and the last by far the most bitter.’

‘The first sweet is that the fee for this diamond investigation is princely. More than princely. There will be more than enough after we have paid our living expenses for the next half year to endow a cot at the hospital if you so choose, although I claim the right of naming it.’

‘Of course, of course, my dear Holmes,’ his smile was true now, and he caught my hand in his eagerness and shook it. ‘Of course, whatever you like. Even if it cannot be immediately, with the hope of it there, I can make shift to keep little Polly well for Lestrade until she is able to go to the hospital. I cannot thank you enough! That is indeed sweet: to know that that benefit will come makes your absence worthwhile – if not bearable.’

I released one hand from his grip to touch his shoulder. ‘There is yet one more small piece of sugar. I have prevailed upon my friend in the government to offer half of the endowment for a cot in the hospital. With that, and with what you and I can manage, we can put Lestrade’s little girl there tomorrow. But for this, I make one stipulation.’

‘Anything, Holmes!’ His voice was rough, and his eyes very bright. ‘What is it you desire me to do?’

‘I think you should name the bed for your little sister,’ I told him, gently. ‘You could call it Minnie’s Bed, if you wanted to.’

He bolted at that, clear through the drawing room, and upstairs. I closed my ears to the muffled sounds from his room: I did not fully understand why he was so overset, for I had meant to please, not dismay him, and now saw my plans in ruins. I did not go to him, for fear of upsetting him further, but instead waited patiently.

Mrs Hudson and Janey came in with our dinner. They drew the curtains, lighted the lamps and mended the fire. It was silent by then. I explained that Watson was napping upstairs, and that I would go and waken him, thanked them, and closed the door behind them. But I did not call. I waited, and dithered, and worried, and wondered, until eventually, I heard his slow step on the stair.

‘I am so sorry, Watson,’ I began, as soon as he entered the room, but he shook his head, and came towards me. He took my hands in his again, and smiled. ‘You are the kindest person I know, Holmes, the very kindest. Forgive me for being overwhelmed.’ He embraced me gently, briefly. ‘Thank you.’

‘I wondered if you were angry, because I mentioned your sister, but I see you are not. I was not wrong then, to think that it would please you?’

‘No, not wrong. It pleased me and touched my heart more than I can say, to have Minnie’s name remembered like that. I shall try to put money aside for it every year now, to remember her always. Thank you for putting the thought into my head.’

‘Then I shall share the cost with you every year,’ I said. ‘Watson, dinner has been getting cold for half an hour, but I did not wish to call you. Do you choose to eat?’

‘A glass of wine, and some bread, if there is any, nothing more,’ he replied. ‘Holmes, could we sit together and read tonight? It – it would comfort me.’

‘Dumas?’ I asked, pouring the wine for him. ‘Very gladly, my dear Watson.’

*****

The Dublin Castle cases came up for inquiry on the fifth of August, and the trials were put back until the nineteenth, while the jury attempted to decide whether James Ellis French was fit to plead, or insane. For myself, I was convinced the man was sane, but so terrified of punishment that he might as well be mad. Meanwhile I was notified that I was needed in Antwerp, and prepared myself to go.

I was accustomed to packing my own cases, but on this occasion had reckoned without Watson. He ventured into my room in the morning, as I was dusting off a valise that had last seen service some years ago, and immediately took the somewhat be-grimed cloth out of my hand.

‘Holmes, you must not wipe a valise with your nightshirt. I shall ring and ask Mrs Hudson for a duster. In fact that case had better go downstairs to be properly cleaned before you use it, or all of your linen will end up soiled. If you had ever been under Army discipline you would not make such a mull of this task, for all love. When do you catch the boat train from Liverpool Street?’

‘Tomorrow, after luncheon. By spending the night at the Great Eastern Hotel, I shall be able to take the screw steamer, Norwich, from the new Parkeston Quay very early the next morning: she travels at 14 knots, and I shall thus be in Antwerp by Thursday evening. I sincerely hope my business there will not take me above a week – indeed, I shall ensure that it does not - so I shall be back by the sixteenth, before the trial.’

‘A week! I had not thought it would be so long.’

‘It does not please me either: I do love to be home, and I cannot sleep well in a strange bed. But the fee is two hundred and fifty guineas, and I should not pass that up. We are poor men, Watson, and must shift as best we can for ourselves.’

‘Holmes, one might almost say that that is a ridiculous sum of money – for one week’s work. I am intrigued, I confess, the more so as I may not go with you. Are you able to tell me who employs you?’

‘A merchant of the name of Julius Wernher. He is, unlike most of the diamond merchants, of Protestant Lutheran stock, but he works at the present time for the Jewish firm of Porgès et Cie. He returned in the spring from the Cape, where he had been at the Kimberley diggings for fifteen months. He tells me that the diamond business has been much depressed of late years, but that just as he had hopes of bringing some order out of chaos, this new company, Wynert, has begun to undersell the established merchants, bringing in rough diamonds through Amsterdam to Antwerp, where they are cut. Of course it was used to be Antwerp, where I go, that was the centre of the trade, but its primacy was usurped in the last century by Amsterdam because most of its principal financiers reside there and have the monopoly.’

‘It promises to be a fascinating trip then – but I hope there will be no danger to you. Which reminds me, I have not yet seen you fire my pistol. Lestrade has promised me that we may use the Yard rather than annoy Mrs Hudson by shooting here, but I did not realise you would go so soon, so I have not yet set a date.’

‘I do not have time to go to the Yard, and I am sure Mrs Hudson will not object if we use the area. The women may cover their ears and squeak if they wish.’

‘Very well then, here if we must. It is of greater importance to me to know that you are competent with small arms, Holmes.’

‘Watson, I was bred in the country. I have been handling arms since I was breeched. Why do you doubt me?’

‘I do not doubt you. But I would not send a man under my command into the field without knowing him competent to defend himself; so neither will I with you, my friend. You must oblige me in this, Holmes.’

‘Am I under your command?’

He laughed. ‘I do believe that in most matters I am under yours, Holmes, since it is you who are the detective and I who follow, and merely assist, but in matters which touch on your health and your safety, then yes, I do desire that you should allow yourself to be commanded. You have a magnificent brain, my friend, but I am not convinced of its ability to take into account the needs of your body; rather you use it to compel your body in ways you should not. So I am your guardian, if you like. Fetch your coat, and let us go downstairs. My pistol is always primed, so we may simply shoot off a few rounds without delay, and then return to your packing.’

I expected Mrs Hudson to object to our using the area for target practice but she merely rolled her eyes at us in exasperated fashion and requested us to shoot away from the kitchen windows. So we descended the stair to the basement, and outside, among the kitchen bins and watched by a suspiciously plump street cat – from the level of its familiarity and fearlessness, I deduced that Janey had taken pity on it, and Mrs Hudson allowed it the run of the kitchen – we proceeded to my shooting lesson.

He criticised everything. Everything. My stance was wrong – and he used his own feet to nudge mine into a better position. He ran indoors to beg Mr Hudson for chalk, and then made me place my feet inside the chalk marks. I was in the habit of dropping my shoulder before I fired – and he moved close behind me to change the angle of my arm, placing his arm under mine. ‘Like that, Holmes. Stiffen your wrist a little, you are too loose and easy for accuracy.’

‘The pistol throws a few degrees left,’ he warned me, ‘you must correct for that when you aim, remembering that mathematically, the longer the distance of your shot, the greater the degree of divergence in the angle. It does not deviate vertically from its line, however: if you miss on a vertical scale, it will be because you yourself are inaccurate. Dropping your shoulder or your wrist will do that.’

He chalked outlines on the wall, then fetched his service revolver, and made me shoot with that, as well as the pistol, telling me to place shots precisely where he had indicated and moving my limbs like a puppet’s into the correct position when I erred.

‘If you shoot, shoot to incapacitate, not to kill,’ he told me, ‘unless you are in the last extremity, when you have my full permission to shoot where you damn well please. If you wish to be sure of your kill, in a frontal shot aim for the head, directly between the eyes. From the side, aim for the opening of the ear, from the back, the base of the skull. A shot there will penetrate the most vital areas, cause immediate loss of consciousness, and drop your quarry where he stands.’

He tapped my chest on the left side. ‘A heart shot is never sure unless you are very accurate: the clothing obscures the ribs, and one cannot be counting them for precise placement. And I consider that it is an unkind shot: it can take some seconds of pain and anxiety before your kill succumbs. If you wish merely to disable, do not waste time shooting for the leg or the knee: a wounded man seriously intent on your demise may still get off a shot to wound you in his turn. Shoot for his shooting arm: it is a large enough target that you may do enough damage to stop him. In fact, I think I shall send you with the revolver, Holmes, it is more effective, for then you may disable his other arm as well. And the revolver does not throw to the left.’

He terrified me, I have to confess, or he would have done had I truly been his enemy. God defend me from a good man wronged: he would have been merciless in defence of his own, although I could not see him as a wanton aggressor. In any case, he drilled me ruthlessly enough, so I blazed away with pistol and revolver until I was quite heated, and he expressed himself satisfied and bade me stop.

‘You would have been a pretty fair shot had you had army training,’ he commented, tossing me a handkerchief. ‘Wipe your brow and your hands, Holmes, and I shall clear up down here. Although I am afraid the wall is now looking rather pockmarked.’

I agreed, wiping my hands, that it was indeed looking rather the worse for wear, and that we had caused quite enough commotion, since one cannot fire repeated shots in a London street without causing some remark, and at one point he had had to run upstairs to speak to a concerned policeman.

‘Although I have not seen you shoot yet,’ I remarked. ‘Watson, you have not shown me what you can do.’

‘I was not the one in need of instruction.’ He looked at me quizzically. ‘Do you think me one of those men who tell others, but cannot do the thing themselves?’

‘Not at all, I merely wished for a demonstration, if you would be so kind.’

‘Then I shall show you if you would like. Wait here.’

He returned a few moments later with a playing card, which he showed me. ‘This is my party trick,’ he said, smiling slightly. ‘I was always asked to demonstrate it for the new recruits. And it came in handy for establishing my authority: the men are inclined to think little of an army doctor who is not, strictly speaking, a combatant. I have to shoot right handed now though, of course: I am no longer accurate with my left. Although we were encouraged at Netley to use either hand impartially, for just that reason, that we might be of more use.’

He affixed the card (it was the seven of hearts) to the wall, loaded his Webley, and took aim. He shot out five of the hearts down each side of the card with the revolver, then loaded and re-loaded the pistol, and shot out the remaining two pips. He was deadly accurate – the holes might have been drilled by a machine

‘Oh, very well done,’ I told him, applauding, and he turned and bowed to me with a twinkle in his eye. ‘You are an impressive shot and a gallant soldier, John Watson.’

For a moment his gaiety bubbled over in a hearty laugh, but he sobered quickly. ‘I am a soldier who will soldier no more,’ he told me. ‘I will defend myself where I must, and fight for those I love to my last breath, but I will act the aggressor no more. I am done with war, Holmes. War is vile, an insanity, an obscenity. I am a healer: I ask nothing else but to be allowed to heal.’

‘I know.’ I tucked my hand into his arm. ‘I do know, Watson. Are you now satisfied that I can defend myself too? I can fence well, and box, as you have seen, and I am skilled in singlestick and baritsu, as you know. I am not helpless.’

‘See that you are not,’ he replied, patting my hand, ‘for I do not wish to lose you. I must clear up here, Holmes, and then clean and prepare the revolver for you to take with you. Do you go upstairs, and lay out the clothing you wish to take with you, and I will show you how we pack in the Army. Mrs Hudson has cleaned your case properly, so we may use it now without fear of you soiling your linen. I would not have you appear a sloven in front of your diamond merchants and financiers.’

*****

 **‘Dr John Watson 221B Baker Street London stop Arrived Safely Great Eastern Harwich stop’** I wrote on the telegram form, and then paused.

What else could I have said? I had not thought I would miss Watson so much. I had only been away from him a few hours, as I had been many times before during the day, but in this instance, since I knew that our parting would extend for a week or more with the sea between us, I felt peculiarly bereft. There was an aching vacancy at my side: I realised that since we took rooms together three years ago, we had scarcely been apart. We had slept under the same roof since January 1881.

 _I miss you._ I could not write that. One man does not write ‘I miss you’ to another.

 _Are you well?_ It was completely irrational of me to fear that some dire catastrophe had befallen him in the few hours since we parted at Liverpool Street. There was no earthly reason why in this particular five or six hours, he should have been run over by a cab, stabbed by some miscreant in the street, eaten an unkind oyster and succumbed in agony, been blown up by Fenians, contracted an inflammation of the lungs or burned down our Baker Street rooms. Yet I was consumed by anxiety lest any of those things had removed from the world the man I cherished. The man I loved, beyond any loving I thought might come to me.

 _I wish we were together._ Oh, I was far gone: sore wounded. The blind archer’s aim was true. Watson, if he knew . . . well, he would – he would assure me that such feelings were nothing reprehensible, of course, for I had heard him assure poor Trevelyan of the very same thing. He had often stated to me that he did not consider love between men wrong. But it was very different, I thought, to comprehend these things in theory – in potentia , as it were. The actuality, the reality of a man who loved him – who wanted him - that, my dear John, I thought, that might be another matter altogether.

 _Do not expose yourself to unnecessary dangers. Avoid the fevered patient, walk no dark alleys at nightfall, DO NOT DIE before my return._ I could write none of this.

 **Will Write Further With Address stop Holmes** I concluded, summoned the messenger boy, and sent off my stark missive. My hotel room was comfortless: without my homely untidiness, I was an uneasy man. And what could I do here but sleep? I took my Petrarch out of my pocket, looked at it, laid it aside.

 

By three in the morning, despite lying down, I had not slept. The ferry would depart in three hours. I rose, shaved, washed, dressed. Outside it was yet dark, but the night was noisy: the work of the port does not stop for darkness.

The hotel stationery on the small bureau was of fair quality, the ink clean; there was sealing wax, and a taper. I took up my pen.

_My dear Watson,_

_As I expected, sleep has eluded me: it occurred to me that I might therefore write you a line or two to . . ._

tell you how dear you have become and how unexpected that that has been to a creature who believed he had taught himself not to care and that when you

_. . . remind you that I have already paid twenty guineas to the account of the Alexandra Hospital, and that you should not . . ._

look at me in that fashion and when I see you with your eyes narrowed in laughter, and the little creases at their corners and your mouth quirked I want you to

_not concern yourself in the least with money matters, but ensure that Lestrade’s little girl is immediately placed there, so you can relax your care of her and instead . . ._

hold out your hand to me as you do on those too fleeting occasions when we embrace and instead of offering that chaste salute on my brow that only teases me with the promise of more I wish you would

_allow yourself the opportunity to hone your craft. We have more than enough money and to spare for a while, and we have agreed for some time that your writing . . ._

allow me to touch you allow me to touch you allow me to touch you and

_is likely to prove a profitable source of income if only you can devote yourself more regularly to it. Do not . . ._

do not turn me away John

_hesitate to draw on my bank for anything else that is needed – I have left the letter of authorisation in my top left hand bureau drawer – but take good care of all our little household until my return, and_

remember that I love you, and you are not to lose yourself

_believe me to be, my dear Watson, your most attached and faithful friend, Sherlock Holmes._

_Post scriptum: I shall write from the other side of the Channel, my dear fellow. I expect to be most vilely ill on the boat, for the wind is sharp._

*****

**Dr John Watson, 221B Baker Street London stop Arrived Safely Antwerp August 7, Write To William Scott Esq. c/o de Post Quellinstraat, Antwerp stop WSSH**

Sending the telegram was the first thing I did on arrival. Then at least Watson would know where to contact me.

_Friday, August 8 th,_

_My dear Watson,_

_I reached Antwerp yesterday and I like it very much: it is a gracious city, cleaner than our sooty metropolis, and smaller, with exquisitely beautiful buildings and a prosperous look about the inhabitants. The diamond quarter is much fallen from its old glory: it was formerly the centre of the diamond trade, but Amsterdam – whither I hope not to have to go – eclipsed it, and its merchants must now be content with cutting the smaller stones that are passed to them as roughs - which they do with remarkable skill, turning them into brilliants as fine as you have ever seen._

_I have a room in a small house for the duration of my stay. It is clean, but the food is heavy and I am not accustomed to the hutsepot, or mixed stew of vegetables and meat that I was served last night. It may be well enough in in the winter, but I find the fat distasteful. My landlady expostulated volubly in Flemish at my poor appetite, and I responded to her politely in French, which she knows, but will not speak. I begged last night for a simple plate of bread and cheese, but the bread she brought me was black rye, and accompanied by fermented herring. My gorge rose at the fish, so I dined on bread alone._

_I am posing as a scholar of stone – a geologist, of the new breed -  interested in acquiring diamond specimens for a private collector in the country. It will not be easy to investigate here: the society is closed, and I am not a Jew, nor would I dare to pretend to be one. I trust I am able to satisfy Mr Wernher, or I shall feel obliged to return his fee, and I do not want to do that._

_Today, I sit in café after café and drink interminable cups of coffee, which does not, I confess, conduce to sound sleep. I wish I had brought my Count of Monte Cristo with me, then I might read it, as we do together. (Your French has definitely improved over the last few months, Watson, although your accent leaves something to be desired.)  I listen to the talk around me, and learn, among other things, that the entire diamond district will close down at sunset today, for the better observance of tomorrow’s Sabbath. I am unlikely to be successful in anything until Monday, I think._

_I have not heard from you yet. I do trust everything is well with our little household. I shall enquire at the Post Office when I go to deliver this whether there be any telegram. I do not hope for a letter yet, of course, but perhaps I will hear from you tomorrow._

_I remain, my dear Watson, as always, your most affectionate friend, Sherlock Holmes._

There was nothing awaiting me on Friday night, but on Saturday morning, when I repaired to the Post Office (which not being Jewish did not close its doors to business on that day) there was a telegram from Watson. I returned immediately to my room and opened it.

**William Scott, Esq. c/o de Post Quellinstraat, Antwerp stop All Well stop Letter Follows stop Watson**

Brevity, I decided, was not a quality I valued in a correspondent. I would have words with Watson about it, when I returned: it was not as if we could not afford the extra pennies for a slightly more loquacious reply. I could not haunt the Post Office all day like some forlorn revenant, and the diamond district was closed for business, so I betook myself early to the Zoological Gardens, not from any desire to see animals unnaturally caged, but because there I might walk in the shade and rest my eyes upon verdure. As it happened, it was a fortunate choice, for I fell into conversation with a young man who approached me, thinking, it was clear, that I might be in want of his services. I was not, I told him, but I was in want of some diamonds.

He pressed me further on the subject of whether I was interested in carnal relations, offering me either gender separately, or both genders together, but eventually accepted that I had not the purse for his market. On the subject of diamonds he was less forthcoming, but it was then my turn to press, and he at length revealed that if one wished to obtain diamonds cheaply, then it was possible if one knew the right names. Further enquiries, and some pecuniary inducement – oil of angels, as Shinwell Johnson would have termed it - led through several rencontres in unsavoury bordellos and some liberal bribery, to an introduction to a wizened individual of suspect cleanliness, who informed me, in extremely demotic French, that although most rough diamond came from the regulated Amsterdam market, there were, as my principal, Julius Wernher, had suspected, some channels that bypassed that city.

‘D’puis dix ans environ,’ he assured me, ‘c’est parce ’que les Nègres ont trouvé les diamants en L’Afrique du Sud: c’était tout a fait possible qu’il y a gens qui trichent leurs maîtres, vendent diamants au marché noir. Devenu de plus en plus difficile: l’année dernière, les maîtres ont décidé de déshabiller leur gens avant qu’ils quittent les mines: ‘s’ont trouver que ces bêtes ont volé, volé, volé des milliards des diamants, des mil-li-ards, mon joli petit homme. Donc, maint’nant c’n’est plus les pauvres conasses qui travaillent dans les entrailles de la terre, c’est les maîtres qui trichent. Sont devenus riches, riches, riches.’

I emerged from my meetings impoverished, filthy, and convinced that I had been bitten physically by numerous parasites of the insect order, as well as financially by parasites of the human kind. (Which former indeed proved to be the case when I stripped later to make use of the inadequate washing facilities in my room. There were many bites above my socks, and one behind my left knee.) The day was overcast and oppressive: August’s heat begging for the blessing of a storm. The detestable stew made its appearance again, but when I rejected it, at least there was a morsel of cheese – a hard, golden-yellow cheese with a black rind, not at all unpleasant – with my rye bread. I walked out after I had eaten to send a telegram to Watson. There was no letter waiting for me.

**Dr John Watson 221B Baker Street London stop Be More Specific stop Spare No Cost stop Inform Fullest Details Household Particularly Yourself stop Have Not Received Letter stop Antwerp Infested Parasites Both Human And Insect stop What Is Your Medical Recommendation For Flea Bites stop WSSH**

_Saturday, August 9 th,_

_My dear Watson,_

_I have spent the most detestable day, and if it were not for the generous fee for this case would be inclined to return home. I have, however found a clue – or a series of clues, in the course of my many meetings, and believe I may be on the way to determining what exactly is happening in the diamond market. A meeting with a gentleman of (possibly) French extraction was the point at which I began to make sense of the situation._

_While the diamond trade was originally carried out in Antwerp, as I believe I mentioned, of late decades Amsterdam has the primacy: it controls and regulates what comes into Europe of the gems, sets prices, and increasingly is being run by a very few, and very rich families. The trade has hitherto  largely been in Brazilian diamonds, and since Brazil is controlled by Portugal, and the Kings of Portugal have chosen to grant the exclusive right to purchase rough diamonds to Amsterdam, Antwerp, which in reality was once the cradle of the cutting trade – it was a fifteenth century Antwerp craftsman, one Lodewyk van Bercken, who created the scaif in 1456, this being a wheel upon which, in a film of mixed olive oil and diamond dust (as I learned today) the diamond’s brilliant facets are cut – Antwerp lost its position, and was obliged to make do with what inferior roughs were allocated to it by its sister city and rival._

_Of late years, however, huge diamond mines have been opened up in South America, and as Amsterdam has no monopoly over these, Antwerp is once again coming to the fore, since its supply of excellent quality roughs has been renewed._

_These mines have, however, been bedevilled by losses: there has been a constant slow haemorrhage of roughs by reason of pilfering by both black and white mine workers alike. Only last year therefore, the diamond companies enforced searching houses for their workers – both white and black, although I understand that they are more lenient to the white workers (who have it in their power to withdraw their labour) than the black. The diamonds thus recovered are said to be worth about 8 per cent of the total output of the mines. However, where these diamonds go is the issue: they are not necessarily all returned by the searchers, but traded for their own profit._

_You must forgive this long, and no doubt tedious exposition. If you were here or I were home, I would be able to tell you about the case, we would even now be sitting comfortably together with a glass of good burgundy, instead of this wretched beer, and I would have the benefit – a benefit which I have, perhaps, not sufficiently appreciated – of your insight and sturdy common sense. As it is, I sit here alone in a stuffy room under a lowering sky, forlorn, overheated, and bedevilled by insect bites which have swollen into painful lumps, and itch abominably. I have endeavoured to bathe them in saline solution, but it is to no avail: I expect the reaction must run its course. At least there was bread and cheese this evening._

_I await your news with some anxiety, my dear Watson. Pray make haste and relieve my mind by sending the fullest details of how you do, and what has befallen you in my absence. Write minutely, for no detail, as you know, is too small to be read with eager interest by your most affectionate and faithful friend, Sherlock Holmes._

Sunday was detestably hot: the storm had not broken. Most of the Christians in the city were taking their day of rest, so although there was a subdued bustle in the diamond quarter around Hovenierstraat, it was restricted to merchants of the Jewish faith dealing with their own kinsmen. The Zoological Gardens proved no distraction either, for it swarmed with plump Belgian businessmen out for the day with their smiling wives and well-behaved children. The less savoury inhabitants of the area had vanished as if by magic in the face of this wave of respectability. The city centre was thronged with people also, including itinerant vendors of the ‘gaufre’, a sweet wafer or pastry with a curious chequered pattern embossed upon it, and the whole dusted with powdered sugar. I bought one, and retreated to my room to eat it: I really could not bring myself to devour it in the street, although it smelt extremely good, and I was very hungry. Later on I went out a second time, and purchased two more, against the possibility that the hutsepot would make its appearance again, which indeed it did. At least with the sugared wafers, and bread and cheese, I made a tolerable meal.

The telegraph office was closed.

_Sunday, August 10 th,_

_My dear John,_

_I am so very lonely without you. I miss your smiles, and your kind blue eyes that look at me with such trust and affection. I miss the knowledge that you are there at my side, steady and brave and compassionate. I miss your warmth when you sit close to me, and your hand on my shoulder._

_My dear John, I wish we were together, and never to part any more._

_Your more than attached, your most loving and devoted, Sherlock (Holmes)._

I did not send it, of course. I burned it in the candle, and felt as if I were immolating a part of myself.

*****

The storm broke on Sunday night with perfect torrents of rain. I flung my window wide, and let the breeze wash out every hint of the days’ foul heat. Towards dawn I fell into an uneasy sleep, from which I roused, not refreshed, but at least more determined to make progress in my investigation. I called first at the Post Office, of course, and to my delight there was a letter endorsed to my alias in Watson’s neat, distinctive hand as well as a telegram. I took them at once to the Zoological Garden, where I found a bench that was not too damp to sit upon and read them.

I opened the telegram first, lest it be bad news.

**William Scott, Esq. c/o de Post Quellinstraat stop Fullest Details In Letter stop Writing Further Letter stop Attempt To Possess Soul In Patience stop Even Telegraph Company Not Shakespeares Ariel stop If Fleas In Bed Move Lodging stop If Not Possible Purchase Keatings Powder Or Equivalent stop Do Not Scratch Bites stop Apply Calamine Lotion Ask For Zinc comma Ferric Oxide Emulsion stop If Necessary To Exterminate Larger Parasites Dispose Of Remains Prudently comma All Well Here stop Kindest Regards stop Watson**

He had obviously received my third telegram. But not, it appeared, my last letter.

_Sunday, August 10 th,_

_My dear Holmes,_

_I shall most certainly not draw upon your bank, my dear fellow, you are not to suppose for an instant that I should do so. But I thank you for the offer all the same; you are so generous to me. I am not in very low water at the moment, for one of my little ships – quite literally a little ship for it is a sea story, a mystery of the ocean, if you like -  has come into port, and paid handsomely, although not to the rate of your diamond investigation._

_I do desire that you shall not drink excessive amounts of coffee, Holmes. It is very good coffee on the continent, but it is also very strong. Of course you will not sleep if you are drinking it all day. Restrict yourself to the beverage in the morning, and at night take tea, or since you are in the country for it, a tea of the lime-flower, tilleul, I think they call it. You might bring some back with you, it is an agreeable beverage, and is both soothing and lenitive._

_For the rest, we are all well here, although your presence is greatly missed, my dear fellow. Mrs Hudson has commented several times on how quiet it is without you, little Janey looks quite sober, and the Billy and the boys are wandering around so forlornly that I am obliged to concoct errands for them to run._

_Thanks to your kindness, we have installed little Polly Lestrade at the hospital: she is in a corner cot in a bright, airy room. I have directed that only rest, good food, and gentle traction to the leg should be applied: she is not strong enough for excision of the joint, and I do not think it is efficacious in any case. It is a peculiarly brutal process, often applied to the children of the poor, who have no choice, but rarely resorted to by rich parents who can afford the long resting period required to manage the disease. I believe Lestrade will be your friend for life, Holmes, he is so grateful to you. He is extremely fond of the little girl: it is strange how the cade lamb in a family is often the most cherished, although weakly, and requiring twice the trouble of other, more robust children._

_We have also effected a change in the Lestrade household. Janey’s brother was not happy at his place, so with Mrs Hudson’s conniving, we have conspired to place him with the Lestrades, where he may do all the rough work, fetching and carrying, chopping wood, some cleaning, and minding the children. He is an active, useful lad, and the best of it is that he is to assist Mrs Lestrade in the morning, and then later go to school, where he will receive the education in technical drawing that he wishes for. Mrs Hudson, bless her, has made it look to the Lestrades as if it is they who are doing us a favour in lodging him in return for the help. They will not be out of pocket, for we have paid over and above for his board._

_As for myself, I have gone on very quietly, my dear Holmes. I am endeavouring to write, but the force is lacking at the moment. A dull, settled cloud seems to oppress my spirits: perhaps your return, which I hope will be soon, will lift it and restore them. I beg that you will take good care of yourself, so that I may welcome you home in good health, and that you will wire for me if I can be of any assistance, or of course, if you have need of me – do not hesitate: I will come to you at any cost._

_I am, my dear Holmes, as always and ever, your most sincerely affectionate friend and colleague, John Watson._

I was selfishly glad to find myself missed. Surprised, but also glad. When I had referred in my letter to ‘our little household’ I had been concealing an enquiry about Watson, but reading his letter, it occurred to me that I did indeed have a little household. Not a usual household, composed as it was of a wounded and neurasthenic army surgeon, an elderly widow, a  foundling girl, and a pack of street boys, but a household, none the less, that looked to me, and missed my presence. It gave me a warm feeling about the heart, and I sat for some time on the bench reflecting upon it.

All too soon, however, I was obliged to resume my investigations in the most unsavoury streets of Antwerp – even beautiful cities, it appeared, had less than salubrious areas. On one occasion, I was obliged to take a precipitate departure through a yard full of wet washing, which slapped me disagreeably in the face, and over a fence – and when I mentioned this to my next vis-à-vis, he informed me that I had left at the right moment: I would certainly have been robbed had I stayed. On another, when my enquiries had clearly triggered suspicion, I laid my interlocutor out with an uppercut, and retreated to wider, more open streets, taking the opportunity to use the main door of a church to find shelter from my pursuers. They were damnably persistent, however, and at length I availed myself of a closed confessional box where I effected some small changes in my costume before strolling out of the side door, leaving behind, with some reluctance, a rather fine overcoat. At least the priest might offer it to some needy lamb of his flock, I reflected, since I was unlikely to be able to retrieve it.

I returned to my lodgings heated and weary, and begged water to wash in, then sat in my drawers and shirt – it was close, thundery weather again – to write to Watson. He would have to do without a telegram on this occasion, for I had not been able to stop at the Post Office.

_Monday, August 11 th_

_My dear Watson,_

_Finally I hear from you: you are a most desultory correspondent when a man is anxious for news of home. What an excellent business you have made of helping Lestrade, my dear chap: but it is you he should be thanking rather than me. I should never have thought of all of that, nor taken care to organise it. I must be content to have provided the money, and I shall insist that any gratitude owed is yours._

_Today I am rather nearer the solution to Mr Wernher’s mystery than I was. There is an American gentleman here, going by the name of Henry Judson Raymond. I say going by the name of, since I am certain that that is not his name. I was able to observe the man closely -  at least until his colleagues discovered my presence -  and I should say that he is of Eastern European stock. His accent is American, it is true, but under it there is a hint of a more distant origin. In any case, he, and the person I saw him meet, Rosenthal Cronon, are the reason why Wynert and Company is able to undercut the market in diamonds. Cronon is what is called a ‘fence’ or a dealer in stolen goods. He is supplying Raymond with illicitly acquired diamonds._

_Raymond owns that company, but not in propria persona: there is a long chain of dealers and partners, and financiers of dubious morals woven around him. I have yet to find where the diamonds come from, but I suspect that they do not, as Mr Wernher originally thought, come through Amsterdam. And if South Africa is their provenance, then Wernher is better equipped to pursue investigations there than I, for he knows the country and I do not, nor do I have any desire to venture so far afield from my own haunts. Tomorrow, I shall endeavour to find out a little more, so that I can satisfy Mr Wernher, retain my own honour in the business, and return home._

_I am glad that the household goes on tolerably in my absence, but I am most grieved that you yourself are low in your spirits. I hope it is not the nightmares again, and I not there to play you into sleep. If it were possible for you to come to me I would feel all the happier for your presence – I too am a little low – but I was charged most straitly to involve no other in this matter. Indeed, I perhaps overstep my mark in telling you the details of what I do. If ever this situation arises again- which I trust, and intend, that it shall not, but occasions do arise that are unavoidable – we should perhaps devise some private cipher: then we may correspond more confidentially._

_I shall endeavour to wrap this matter up tomorrow, so that I may take the steamer on Wednesday morning. If that is the case – I shall advise you by telegram, my dear fellow – you may expect me within twenty four hours after that. I shall not stay at Harwich, but get whatever means of transport I can to return to London, even if it be the milk train. One can sleep on a train as well as in a bed, and I am anxious to be in my own haunts once more._

_I am, my gallant Pythias, your most sincerely attached, affectionate and faithful friend and companion, Damon._

_Post Scriptum: Watson, is it correct that a sprained ankle requires only binding? I shall rest it overnight, of course, but it is a little painful, and it occurs to me that strapping it up might serve to strengthen it. And would you recommend witch hazel for bruises? I am inclined, myself, to the cold water compress, but my landlady is insisting upon proffering an unction which I can identify by smell as containing hamamelis mollis. I shall endeavour to get this letter off in the post tonight, so that you will get it in the course of the day tomorrow, and perhaps, my dear fellow, you might let me have a telegraphic response? Forgive me for not sending you a telegram today: I was too occupied by the, to be blunt, ignominious business of running away._

_There was hutsepot again today. The potatoes might have been tolerable, but were tainted too much by the fat they were boiled in. Still, there is wheaten bread, since I have paid extra to have that instead of the rye._

_~~I wish you were here, Watson.~~ _

*****

The following morning I arrived at the Post Office to find a telegram from the night before, and a letter. The telegram was indignant and to the point:

**William Scott, Esq. c/o de Post Quellinstraat stop Did Not Hear From You Last Night stop Wire Immediately Upon Receipt Of This stop All Most Anxious Wellbeing comma Whereabouts comma Dammit Communicate With Me Man stop Watson**

I replied immediately, for I did not wish my little household to be concerned, and then turned to the letter, which was sadly brief.

_Sunday night,_

_My dear Holmes,_

_Your last was delivered very late, and I have sat up to reply to it so that I may send it tomorrow morning, and you may receive it as soon as possible._

_If you have been bitten, my dear fellow, you must not scratch the bites. Infection can set in, and poison the bloodstream, especially if you are in places where there is dirt and disease – and knowing you as I do, I am morally certain that you are in such places. The itching can be relieved with a paste of bicarbonate of soda and water. In the desert I am afraid we used a more unpleasant remedy, which was to apply a little fresh urine to the bite, bicarbonate of soda being in short supply. Or oil of the lavender plant can also be efficacious if it is to be had._

_If you are too hot in your room, beg an extra sheet from your landlady – God knows she will surely not begrudge you a sheet, since you seem to be eating none of the food she prepares for you, and I daresay you will be nigh on reduced to a skeleton when you return – wet it with cold water, and hang it in front of your open window. You will find it will cool the air entering, and afford you some relief from the oppressive weather._

_I am sure you are progressing well with the investigation; I have the greatest confidence in your ability and intelligence, as you well know. I look forward to hearing the details from your own lips, my dear boy._

_We are all going on well here, save that your absence, my dear Holmes, leaves us all feeling an intolerable void – and that can only be filled by a return which I trust will not long be delayed._

_Your most affectionate friend and devoted servant, John Watson._

_Post scriptum: Should you like, my dear Holmes, to spend a quiet week in the country when you return? We have not yet been out of town, you know. A sojourn in Sussex might be agreeable: what do you think?_

I missed him. I missed him until my chest tightened, and my stomach felt hollow, and my heart, that intransigent organ, knifed me with every beat. I had never felt so hopelessly lonely and adrift as I did sitting there, on a damp (again) bench, with his letter in my hand. If I could have crossed the Channel on wings I would have done so in an instant. But I could not. And so I tucked his letter in my breast pocket, and continued my distasteful tasks.

I was rather more successful in my investigation on the Tuesday, and it was unnecessary to evade pursuit. This was fortunate, since I could not have run fast despite the improvised bandage I had applied to my ankle. However, although I felt I had the answer to rather more of the ‘Mystery of the Inexpensive Diamonds’ than I had had before, in another respect there was clearly more to discover.

I had been lying prone along a roof, hidden from view, and listening through an open skylight to Raymond. I did not know to whom he was talking, only that from the voices, there were three of them, and I dared not raise myself to look into the room lest anyone should catch sight of me. (It was, in fact, a testament to my opponent’s confidence that having chased off a spy the day before he did not think to post guards. He had clearly thought me nothing but a sneak thief, and therefore no threat.) He was conversing quite freely and it took me little time to determine that the diamonds were, as I had surmised, being diverted in the searching houses in South Africa from the unfortunate natives who had pilfered them from the mines. A small proportion, just enough to make all look proper, was returned to the mine owners, and the remainder was parcelled up by the searchers and shipped to Port Elizabeth, where Raymond’s men brought them back to Rosenthal Cronon, who could arrange for them to be cut and finished in Antwerp. The finished diamonds were then, it was clear, sold at a discount by Raymond’s company, Wynert, much to the chagrin and financial loss of Julius Wernher and Jules Porgès et Cie. As a scheme it was both ingenious and simple, offering little in the way of risk – for no violence was required – and much gain.

What puzzled me, however, were certain references to two other players in this nefarious little game - because they were not named, only referred to by title as ‘The Navigator’ and ‘Mr Greatman’. These appellations appeared to me to be positively ridiculous, and when Mr Raymond and his cohorts mentioned ‘the serpent sword’ ‘the spread-eagle’ the ‘star of six’ and ‘the triple stars’, I began to wonder if I were living through the pages of some penny dreadful novelette such as The Black Mask, or even one of Mr Wilkie Collins’ more fevered and melodramatic oeuvres. However they appeared so serious – and indeed, when I listened closely, so very concerned and anxious -  about these entities, that I could not dismiss their conversation entirely and so resolved to investigate further on my own account. For all I knew, these might simply be inns or taverns where illegal goods (it was quite clear that Mr Raymond was not just a diamond-dealer but a dealer in other uncustomed and illicitly traded items) were delivered, bought and sold – and yet . . . and yet I could not rid my mind of the notion that they were not.

It cost me some pain to return to the ground from the roof, for my ankle was much swollen, and I was stiff and sore with long lying in one position, but I managed to descend eventually, and limped in the direction of the Post Office. It was now about four in the afternoon, and I did not expect any post so early; however, I had resolved to inform Watson of my intention to leave Antwerp that very night. I had all the information my principal required: there was no point, therefore in staying longer.

It transpired that there was another telegram for me: Watson at his most imperious.

**William Scott, Esq. c/o de Post Quellinstraat stop Telegraph Immediately Extent And Severity Of Injuries. Departing For Harwich Upon Receipt Of Your Reply Unless Fully Satisfied Your Safety stop Watson**

I dashed off a quick telegram assuring him that I was in no danger, merely stiff and sore, that I would be taking the night steamer, arriving at Harwich in the morning and taking the first available train to London and that he was on no account to concern himself about me. Once I had returned to my lodgings, it was the work of only a few moments to tumble my clothing and effects into my valise, and repair to the steamer pier, where a little judicious bribery assured me of a reclining chair in a sheltered corner. I could, I knew, repose in comfort there with a couple of fairly clean blankets. And in truth I preferred that to a cabin, for enclosed in the bowels of the ship I felt so deathly sick, with the smells of oil and bilge and people, that it was torture to remain.

Despite the precaution of remaining wrapped in blankets on deck, I was in sorry case by the time dawn came and my ponderous transport sidled up to Parkeston Quay to disgorge her weight of humanity. It was all I could do to hobble off the gangplank and retrieve my valise, for my head felt disagreeably heavy and my ankle was throbbing. I stood on the Quay in the windy morning, cold and in pain, and gathering my strength for the next step.

‘Well, Holmes, I perceive that you have quite knocked yourself up in the course of this little escapade. Can you walk at all on that foot, my dear fellow?’

I turned, and there was Watson, his face pale, and sterner than usual. He waved imperiously at a porter, removed my valise from my unresisting hand, delivered it over to the man, and directed it to be carried to the Great Eastern. Without more ado, he drew my left arm over his shoulder, and supported me around the waist with his right. He was warm, and solid - so hopelessly dear and familiar and safe - and I leaned into him with a sigh of relief that I could by no means repress.

‘Bear as little of your weight on that left ankle as you may, Holmes. It is a matter of thirty steps or so to the cabs, and then we shall not need to walk to the hotel. I have taken the precaution of engaging two ground floor rooms, so you will not have to manage stairs.’

We hobbled to the cab rank in silence, and I submitted to being placed inside the vehicle. He sat beside me, and quietly put his arm around my shoulders.

‘When did you last eat, Holmes?’

‘Monday evening, I believe. When did you get my telegram?’ I enquired, rather weakly, as we drove off. He was so very stern and unsmiling.

‘Monday evening! You have been more than thirty-six hours without food: it is no wonder that you are near fainting from inanition. I received it in the early evening, and, as I had told you I would, came immediately to Harwich.’

‘You said you would come to Harwich if you received no satisfactory news.’

‘And I did not. Come, we are at the hotel. Allow me to assist you to dismount, Holmes, and we shall have you in your room in moments.’

It did indeed, seem only moments before I was seated in a high-backed wing chair before a small fire, divested of my outer clothing, collar and cuffs, and eating a plate of soup that I had not dared to refuse. He busied himself about me – Watson was always quiet in his doctoring, never any unnecessary hurry or bustle – collecting and laying out bandaging for my ankle and eventually coming to take my plate away.

‘I must have a look at that ankle,’ he said and his tone was apologetic. ‘How much walking have you done on it, Holmes?’

‘Too much,’ I admitted. I caught him by the hand. ‘Watson? I am sorry. Please do not be angry with me.’

‘There is no need to be sorry, my dear fellow. And why do you think I am angry?’

‘You were calling me ‘Holmes’. Just ‘Holmes’. Only my name. I feel as if I am at school, and in front of the headmaster.

He patted me on the shoulder. ‘My dear fellow, pray do not fret. I am not pleased you have not eaten, and I am worried about you. If you do not fuel your body, you cannot expect it to continue to run, you know. Also this ankle has been badly hurt: you must keep off it as much as possible for the next few days. But I am not angry with you, my dear man, only most grateful that I have you in my care again, alive and, I hope, not very much damaged. And I am afraid I am going to hurt you, Holmes, for you have not bandaged this foot very well at all, and it must be re-done. I must check to see there are no broken bones.’

He brought a bowl of hot water from the table, placed it on the floor in front of me and knelt. With gentle hands, he removed my shoe, sock, and bandage, and set about feeling the ankle all over. It did hurt. It was most exquisitely painful, and looked as bad as it felt, for it was all colours, red and blue and purple and grossly swollen. He was tender with me, each touch almost a caress, but he was most damnably thorough, and when eventually he pronounced that he did not think there was anything broken, I was sweating in my chair, and biting my hand to keep from crying out as I rode the crashing waves of pain. After he had washed, dried and bound the injured foot, he eased it down onto a cushion, and turned almost absent-mindedly to cleansing and drying my other foot onto which he drew a clean woollen sock before he stood up, wincing and stretching, his hands in the small of his back.

‘It will hurt badly for a while - I am so sorry, my dear. And I cannot give you laudanum, of course. I have brought tincture of willow bark, and in a moment there will be hot water so that we may make up a dose of it. Meanwhile, you may have a glass of brandy if you eat your bread.’

‘Are you not eating? Watson, I am afraid you are still not happy with me.’

There was some delay before he answered, and my heart sank further with every second that passed while he organised his medical equipment and tidied all back into his bag. His back was turned to me.

‘I have missed you quite damnably, you impossible man. The house has been quiet and lonely, and so have I. There, is your vanity satisfied?’

‘Not my vanity,’ I said. ‘But my heart, perhaps. I confess that I did not like working without you. There was no-one to keep watch for me and scold me when I was going wrong. And I could not deal with the landlady at all. Had you been there, we would have been better served, for you would have charmed her into producing meals I could actually eat. As it was I subsisted on the sparest of diets.’

‘I can see that. You have lost flesh, Holmes, even in a few days, and you have none to lose.’ He went to the door, and opened it for the waiter, ‘Thank you.’

‘Have you ordered more food?’

‘Indeed. The soup was just a preliminary. We have eggs here, and kedgeree, devilled kidneys and ham, and good bread and butter. I expect you to make a proper meal, and then you must sleep before we leave for home. If I do not think you fit by this afternoon, we will spend the night in the hotel and travel tomorrow.’

After we had eaten, he supported me while I washed and changed into the nightshirt he had brought for me and then insisted that I should go to bed, and try to sleep.

‘I won’t sleep,’ I said, when he had me settled in bed and bade me close my eyes. ‘I know that willow bark is supposed to be efficacious, but my foot feels as if it is on fire. Did you have to pull it about so much?’

He rang the bell before answering me, and gave directions for a bucket of ice and some oiled silk to be brought. ‘If I had let it heal with a broken bone, Holmes, it might have been impeded in its flexion and range of movement for the rest of your life, and in the worst case, you might have been unable to run. The ankle is a queer joint, there are many small bones – as there are in your wrist – and all of them need to be in proper relation to each other for it to function. I shall ice-pack it for you, and if you rest, and elevate the limb it will be much better in the morning. But if it is as bad as you say, then we shall be staying here tonight.’

‘I shall be bored. There is nothing to do here.’

‘But I do not know yet the minutiae of the case, my dear fellow, nor the cleverness with which you conducted it. You may amuse yourself telling me about it after you have had a nap, and I shall make notes for you. Now my dear, here is the ice, and we shall see if that makes you more comfortable.’

For the first time since he had met me off the boat that morning, he sounded like my Watson, and I felt able to breathe again. He packed my ankle in ice, and the ache diminished enough for me to sleep, which I did for several hours, rousing at intervals when he moved my foot to change the packing. Finally I woke properly at about four, and lay for a moment, collecting my scattered thoughts. The pain in my ankle had subsided to a dull throb, and my head felt clearer. Watson was at the door of the room, giving instructions in a low voice, and smiled as he turned and saw me awake.

‘That is much better, my dear Holmes, you look more like yourself now. I have called for tea and a sandwich or two, and you may sit up in bed to take them. After that, we will see if you can hobble to the chair, and you may tell me your adventures.’

‘I do feel better,’ I admitted, ‘I do not know how it is, but I am so much happier when you are looking after me, Watson. You have the gift of making your patients feel protected and cared for.’

‘It is what doctors do,’ he said, smiling at me. But for all that I did not think any doctor could have cherished and cared for me as he did. It was John himself, not Dr John Watson, who made me feel loved.

****

I spent, perforce, a quiet few days upon my return from Harwich, tied by the leg and unable to stir. I had to ask Mr Wernher to visit us in Baker Street to deliver my report to him – a report for which he was duly grateful, and expressed himself well served for the money he had expended.

‘You have saved me many times your fee in trouble,’ he said, as he came to shake me by the hand (for I was reclining on the sofa with my foot up). ‘I am most concerned by what you tell me about this Henry Judson Raymond who is behind Wynert. I must put some feelers out, and see what I can find out beyond what appears; indeed, Mr Holmes, upon your recovery, I shall be pleased to employ you again. And your colleague, Dr Watson, of course. I very much regret that I did not understand how materially he would have assisted you. As for these others, the Navigator and Mr Greatman, I have not heard of them, nor the signs and sigils you mention. We mark our gold, it is true, and our silver, but those are not marks I know. I shall have to keep a weather eye out.’

‘That is a decent man,’ I remarked to Watson, when he returned to our rooms after showing our visitor to the door. ‘An honest merchant, perhaps.’

‘Indeed,’ he replied, drawing the footstool to my feet. ‘Come, it is time to dress this ankle again, my friend. Really, Holmes, you flattered me most egregiously in your discourse: I did not know where to look for shame and embarrassment.’

‘I am resolved that if clients would employ me, then they must employ you,’ I told him, after a while. ‘A little tighter if you please, Watson. We are a partnership. If they want Holmes, they must have Watson also, and recognise his sterling worth as I do.’

‘You are a stubborn, ridiculous man,’ he scolded me, as he completed the wrapping, but I saw his blush, and the light in his eye, and thought to myself that he had been too little praised or valued in his life, if such a slight thing could affect him so. 

‘Lestrade has been asking after you,’ he commented, as he drew a sock over my new and lighter bandage. ‘I daresay he would be pleased to visit should you want him. He was mentioning a case – a curious case, that he thinks should not have had the outcome it did, and he wondered if you might be interested in solving it.’

‘I am happy to see Lestrade – thank you Watson, that is kind of you, you have a very gentle hand with injuries  - and the other sock, if you would do me that small favour – but I do not want his case.’

‘Not want his case! Holmes, are you not well? Are you feverish, in pain?’ he had completed his task and risen from the footstool but now he stooped to lay his hand against my forehead, as I closed my eyes. ‘You are not over-warm.’

‘I cannot concentrate upon anything until I know how this trial in Ireland goes, Watson. The thought of it consumes me. Angers me. I cannot settle to anything else, until I know how that will go.’

‘I did not know it weighed so heavily on you, my dear fellow.’

‘Does it not on you? It appeared to me that you shared my distress at the libel trial.’

‘I did, Holmes. I do: of course I do. And I shall continue to do so: I shudder at the brutality of the mob when faced with something they neither comprehend, nor wish to try to comprehend. Yes, it weighs heavy. But at least we are no longer involved. You have handed over the information: your government acquaintance has enough to discredit Meiklejohn and the other inspectors. There is evidence that Chance and Miley have acted outside their remit as solicitors also, evidence for intimidation of witnesses. And I promise you that Cornwall is unlikely to be sent to prison. Sodomy is difficult to prove, as I have told you, and any decent doctor will not commit himself to saying it has occurred. The witnesses have little standing, Cornwall has his rank and prestige to protect him. Whatever the truth of the matter, he is unlikely to be convicted under all of those circumstances.’

‘I do not wish to speak of it further tonight, Watson.

He rested his hand on my shoulder ‘Very well, my dear fellow, we shall not speak of it. Should you like me to assist you to retire now, or would it please you if I were to read to you for a little? Or if you were of a mind to, we could read our Dumas together and pursue poor Dantès’ adventures?’

‘Dumas,’ I had no spirit for the reading, but when we read Dumas we sat close together and I needed him near me that night, a shield against what the morning might bring. ‘Please, Watson. If you would be so kind as to fetch the book, I shall rearrange myself here and make room for you. You will sit with me, will you not?’

‘Of course, my dear, do not we always? And my French is coming along splendidly.’

‘Indeed it is. I fear you will always have the accent, Watson, but in that you are no different from any other Englishmen. Your vocabulary, on the other hand is very much better, and by reading you are acquiring the grammar and syntax. Here, sit down, and we will begin.’

But we did not read immediately. I sat for a while, staring at the page in front of me, my mind all astray, and in the end, he took the book from me, laid it down on the floor, and put his hand on my shoulder. Neither of us spoke. After a few minutes, he loosened his clasp, and I picked up the book and began to read. We were approaching the point at which Dantès had completed his repayment of the kindness of his good old master, Morel, and devoted himself to revenge - and the chapter was a very tender one, replete with descriptions of a loving and devoted family. It was not my habit to allow sentiment to overcome me when reading, yet I could not refrain from emotion when I read the touching scene between Morel and his noble son. Perhaps it was some weakness in me, but I found myself becoming more and more sensibly affected, until at last, my voice wholly suspended, I was obliged to pause.

Watson did not hesitate, but leaned over and read, ‘ _“C’est bien,” dit-il, en tendant la main à Morrel, “Mourez en paix, mon père, je vivrai’.  Morrel fit un mouvement pour se jeter au genoux de son fils. Maximilien l’attira à lui, et ces deux nobles cœurs battirent un instant l’un contre l’autre . . .”_ Father and son embraced, and those two noble hearts beat for an instant one against the other.’

‘Thank you.’ It was all I could say.

He put the book down. ‘Holmes, may I . . .? I – I cannot see you so unhappy and not want to comfort you. There – there is so little  - kindness – so little - tenderness in – in life.’ His voice was unsteady too.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Anything you – I do not mind – whatever you – John . . . there was not as a child – in m-mine, there was none.  Mama, Papa  -  there was none.’

‘I know,’ he said. He held me gently then as if I were much younger, his arms around me in a chaste embrace. ‘I know, Sherlock. I know there was no kindness in your childhood. I can see.  I do know.’

*****

‘If it we were not seeing such animosity in the trials of these men, there is something I could almost find amusing,’ Watson remarked to me a couple of days after Wernher had visited.’

‘I find nothing amusing at the moment,’ I replied, ‘but do, pray enlighten me. Although I doubt there is anything to laugh at.’

‘Maybe not amusing but intriguing then. I spoke incautiously,’ he amended, passing me the coffee. ‘Lestrade is visiting you this afternoon, Holmes, about that case he mentioned to me.’

‘I said I did not want a case. Really, Watson, I will not have interference.’

‘You did,’ he drizzled honey on a piece of toast, and placed it on my plate. ‘But he really needs help, and you have nothing to do. Try this, will you, Holmes?’

‘It is honey: what of it?’ I enquired, ‘and why is it on my plate? That was somewhat presumptuous of you, Watson, and I tell you, I will not take any cases while these Dublin issues are in play. I cannot turn my mind to anything else.’

‘But I am sure that you can solve this little issue so simply, without even leaving your chair,’ he told me. ‘Lestrade will bring the evidence to you, and if you look at it for him, then that is all I will ask. What do you think of the honey?’

‘It is very good,’ The honey was, indeed, good - intense, herbal, almost resinous. ‘What is it? I have never had anything like this before. You are not forgiven for being a – a – an infuriating fellow, Watson.’

‘It is thyme honey, Holmes, from Hymettus. It is the ‘new Hymettus honey’ that the ancients, according to Horace, were wont to mix with old Falernian wine. I beg your pardon, my dear chap, for being infuriating.’

‘How in the world did you find Greek honey in London?’ I asked him, jolted out of my melancholy – which he had no doubt intended. He was smiling at me, too, damn him. I could not resist his smile ’And why have you given it to me?’

‘We have many Greek merchants in London, and I had occasion to treat the child of one recently for a broken leg. It was an unpleasant fracture, but I used Antonius Mathijsen’s Crimean practice of immobilising the limb in plaster of Paris bandages. It is an extension of the ancient Basrah method, which of course, you know all about. In any case, my patient’s father was one of the Ralli brothers, who with the Melas and Xenos families, conduct most of the trade in their country’s goods to England. I know of the Ralli family for they were our suppliers of borax in India – it has many medical uses, as you know - and also of gypsum. We fell into conversation about the medical trade, they expressed themselves grateful for my care, and offered me a gift when the child was discharged.’

‘They did not offer you honey of their own accord, Watson!’

He smiled. ‘No, they offered me coin, which I begged them to redirect toward one of the free beds, and I enquired tentatively about the Greek honey, thinking that they might have some for their personal use, for it cannot be found here, you are right. You have been so out of sorts lately, and I wanted to procure a small unusual pleasure for you. And perhaps I thought to turn your mind back to your bees, your busy little multitudes. The study of their ways and habits proved efficacious formerly in ridding you of your melancholy: I thought on this occasion it might also.’

‘Am I melancholy? Perhaps you are right. If so, I have no right to be, when you are so careful of me, Watson. Thank you, my dear fellow, I shall enjoy every spoonful of this, and all the more if you share it with me. Very well, then, I shall see Lestrade. And what is it that you find amusing? Or intriguing?’

‘I find it intriguing – perhaps I have changed my mind on amusing – that the Queen’s Counsel for Gustavus Cornwall is named Holmes. And the counsel for James Ellis French is a Mr David Sherlock.’

‘I am not ignorant of the fact. I do not find it amusing at all. I know nothing of these men -  Holmes is, lest you should ask, unrelated to me -  and I wish to know nothing. I simply hope that they are efficient at their tasks. Holmes is not an uncommon name, in any case. And Sherlock is of Saxon origin, and means fair-haired. It may be uncommon as a Christian name, but not as a surname. One posits many fair-haired Saxons, all named alike. It is a coincidence, obviously.’

‘Pray do not take offence, Holmes, my dear fellow. I was glad for the defendants, because if either of those gentlemen – Mr Hugh Holmes, QC, or Mr David Sherlock -  has even a fraction of your forensic acumen or acuity of thought, then their charges will surely be acquitted. I simply thought it to be a good omen for the poor defendants, if you like, as well as an amusing similarity of names.’

‘I cannot discuss it. It is presumptuous of you to even suppose a connection. It is ridiculous – you are ridiculous, Watson. A mere coincidence and you appear to attach some importance to it. I have often had occasion to chide you for your romantic flights of fancy, but really, this is beyond anything.’ 

He looked at me then. And I looked away.

‘Then we shall not discuss it at all. I am sorry I have been presumptuous as well over inviting Lestrade, Holmes, Would you like me to make some excuse for you, to say that you are not well? And then I have to go to Barts anyway, and to the Alexandra Hospital, so you may have some peace and quiet.’

‘I will see Lestrade, and I will take his case, but I resent your coercion. I will not be forced in this way: it is intolerable. I will not have it. Will you be away long?’

‘I must be away all day, my dear chap. Among other things, I have a complicated resection to undertake – a comminuted fracture that will not heal, so we must have the leg off. I do not think much of the patient’s chances, but I have promised Burns-Gibson that I will assist.’

He said no more to me, but finished his breakfast, arranged his desk, and collected oddments for his bag, before running upstairs to change his tie. He smiled at me, and told me he would leave a message with Mrs Hudson that I was not to be disturbed, and that he would send a message if he was to be late to dinner, ‘so you may dine without me, old fellow, and be comfortable, if you wish.’

He was halfway to the door before I found my voice – it was little more than a whisper.

‘Thank you for the honey, Watson. It was kind of you.’

He came back to my side, patted my shoulder and said I was his dear fellow, and I was not to mention it, for he was happy to have given me that small pleasure, and then he was gone.

I had spent the best part of a week wishing for his presence, and now I had driven him away with churlish words and short answers. I was a fool.

I berated myself all day for being a fool. Lestrade came – full of a decently expressed gratitude for what we had done for his little girl: he showed nobly at it, and I was impressed, for many men are uncomfortable with a favour done to them, and cannot be civil to someone if they consider themselves indebted. I told him that it was all Watson, and he should thank him, not me, and he laughed, and told me that Watson had said it was all me, and I was the one who should be thanked. I asked cautiously after the child, and he praised Watson again, saying that the timid little girl had no fear of him, but thought him the kindest of doctors, ‘and she has been so sorely mishandled, Mr Holmes, that she is afraid of them, of course. But she has no fear of him. And he speaks so kindly to my wife, that she is quite won over.’

‘He is a paragon indeed,’ I said, and I meant it. ‘What have you for me to do, Lestrade? I cannot run after our criminal – I am forced to be an invalid, as you see -  but I will do what I can for you, restricted as I am.’

‘Well I will be grateful if you can, and that’s a fact,’ he said to me, producing a wrapped bundle. ‘Now, Mr Holmes, it’s about this poor colleague of ours, Ned Cole, who was shot nearly two years ago. We have our suspicions of the man who did it – for Ned was taking into custody a notorious burglar and thief, one Thomas Henry Orrock, and he was shot in the struggle, d’you see – but we cannot bring it home to Orrock. We tried when it first happened – he was brought in, but we could not get an identification: there was a thick fog when the murder took place. So he was let go, and went to ground.’

‘So even if you can tie him to the crime, you must hunt for him,’ I commented, interested despite myself. ‘The trail will have gone cold, Lestrade.’

‘Not so.’ Lestrade looked triumphant. ‘Only this this year, he was sentenced for burglary, and is now in Coldbath prison, so we have him again, and I thought to clear up the murder, for it is yet unsolved. Of late I have been speaking to some men who are prepared to implicate him, but that is all hearsay, and will not stand up in court, even though he has as good as admitted it to one of them. I need one piece of evidence, Mr Holmes, just one. There were tools at the scene of the crime – chisels, and such like, for the burglary, and we have one of them which could even be said to have the word ‘rock’ on it, which is near enough the man’s name. Yet it is not exactly his name, and we cannot hang a man on an unsafe conviction even though he be a villain who shot a man unarmed and doing his duty.’

‘So circumstantial evidence shows us the man at the time and place of the murder? On what grounds? The tools? And you have them there?’

Lestrade brought me the bundle and unwrapped the tools, displaying to my view some very fine cold chisels such as I might have been proud to use myself had I had the need. ‘It is this one and a quarter inch, Mr Holmes, that has letters on it. But try as I might, I can make out nothing clearly, not even with a glass.’

‘But then you do not have my microscope.’ I rose, not without some difficulty, and limped to the table, waving aside Lestrade’s offer of help. It did not suit me to be touched by all and sundry. ‘I can manage for myself, Lestrade. Give me the chisel.’

With the naked eye, it was not easy to see anything graved into the steel, but by dint of some careful manipulation it was possible for me to pick out the letters Lestrade had mentioned, a faint and straggling R – O – C – K. done with a fine sharp tool – an awl, or a graver, but a broken one, wielded by a weak hand – a woman’s perhaps. It appeared to me that there might be some scratches – very faint scratches – to the left of the letters, but it was hard to make it out, since they were light on a light background. Tilting the chisel, or changing the angle did nothing to aid me. I spilt a little black ink on my desk, dabbed my pocket handkerchief into it, and wiped the soaked cloth across the chisel, then rubbed with a clean corner of the cloth until no trace of ink remained. If I were correct in my surmise, and if there were other letters, forcing a stain into the graved areas might provide enough contrast with the matrix to make them stand out.

It was gratifying to see that I was right, and even more gratifying to see Lestrade’s awed face when I showed him, under the most powerful magnification my apparatus could reach, the darkly lined O-R-R-O-C-K that proved the man’s ownership of the instrument. He thanked me profusely, and after some further suggestions for how he could secure a conviction, I sent him away with renewed purpose to prosecute his case. My elation after he had left was short lived, however, for I still had to wrestle with my earlier comments to Watson. They could not be solved by using a microscope.

*****

He did not return that night.

He sent a boy around with a message, saying that he was obliged to remain at the hospital, the case having taken an ill turn, and it was not until midday the following day that he arrived, weary and despondent.

‘We lost him.’ He was blunt in answer to my timid enquiry. ‘And he was a young man too, with a family depending on him. I had to tell the young wife, and she with child. I have directed her to a charity which will be able to aid her – I think she will return to the West country, where she has family – but it was a sad end. I must sleep, Holmes, I am dropping where I stand. No, do not come near me. I stink, and I am begrimed with all sorts of filth, blood, purulent matter, and other such fluids. I shall wash directly, and then I must sleep. Would you play for me, my dear friend? That will do me more good than anything.’

I played Schumann’s Dichterliebe while he bathed and clothed himself. The sweet-sad words of Heine’s poetry echoed in my head, reminding me of what I could not have. When he came back into our room, he looked directly at me.

‘I made you angry yesterday, forgive me. It was clumsy of me to draw attention to those names, and unpardonable of me to force you to take a case. I shall not do so again, nor presume upon our friendship.’

I put down my violin. ‘Say rather that it was unpardonable of me to be abrupt and unkind with you. You care for me, doctor me, think of me – and I repay you with brusque words and uncivil behaviour. It is I who should ask for forgiveness.’

‘No. No. You are clearly extremely anxious and upset about this Dublin case: you have not been yourself since it began. It would not be gentlemanly of me to ask why, or whether you have a personal interest in this - ’

‘I do not have a personal interest, I - ’

‘Hear me out, Holmes, I beg you. If you had a personal interest in it – if you knew, or knew of, or had friends in the past, or now, who were inverts, as I have had, if you had members of your family who were inverts, if, God forgive me for even trespassing upon your privacy like this, you had, in the past when you were a boy had – experiences – as so many boys do at boarding school – ’

‘I did not.’

‘I do not say you did, Holmes. I said if – if this were personal to you, then your anxiety and distress would be most comprehensible. But whether it is personal or not, whether you tell me the reason for your distress or not, whether there is any reason for your anxiety that I am allowed to know, or not, it would make no difference to my affection for you what that reason was. I am your friend, plain and simple. Were you Cornwall himself, and I your friend, my answer to any slur about you, any difficulty you were in, or any information you chose to give me would be the same as Kirwan’s when he was asked in the trial whether he would row in his friend’s boat, or that of the detective, Meiklejohn. He answered that he would sink or swim with his friend, and so he should have done, and so would any man of honour.’

‘Watson, what are you saying? Do you accuse me of Cornwall’s crime?’

‘Setting aside that I do not consider _coitus a posteriori_ a crime, of course I do not, my dear fellow. You have said yourself that romantic entanglements are anathema to you: how much more would a physical liaison be? I am simply saying that I do not need to know why you are exceedingly anxious about this thrice-damned case, to want very much to comfort you when you are distressed by it. So I beg that you will not concern yourself with what I think of you, since it would never, under any circumstances, be anything ill, and seek for comfort when you need it.’

‘I do not need it for the reasons – you – you might suppose. I do not wish to be comforted: I am not such a weakling. Are we ever to be done with this conversation, Watson?’

‘We can be done with it now, Holmes. But for the love of God, man, do not fire up at me so. It has been like living with a – a – very porcupine these last few days: wherever I step, there are quills rattling in my direction and I fear the shot that will pierce me. I need to know nothing, I care for you a great deal, and I will freely admit to the weakness of being miserable when we are at odds. If that does not put you in a superior moral position I do not know what will.’

He waited, but I could not say anything.

'Let us be friends and kind to each other,’ he added, but yawned then, uncontrollably. ‘And now I must, I must go to bed. I have been up all night, and I am near sleeping where I stand. If I have not surfaced by dinner time, Holmes, I would be grateful if you would do me the kindness of waking me.’

He was weary, there were shadows under his eyes, and his mouth was set in a thin line. It was not the loss of a patient only that weighed on him, but my churlish words; I could see that now. But I had no idea what to say to him.

‘Would you play for me still?’ he enquired gently, after waiting for a few moments more. ‘It does help me, my dear fellow – it chases away my nightmares, and the loss of a patient does not help with those.’

I reached for my violin, that source of comfort – and then laid it aside.

‘I am sorry.’ I had to say something. ‘I don’t – I am distressed by this case, more than by others, and you are correct when you say that – that my temper is become uneven. I cannot tell you why, but, Watson it is – it is not anything that – that might cause you to shun my presence, I  - I do assure you.’

‘I am not asking you,’ he said, his voice still low and gentle. ‘I would never shun you.’

‘I know. If – if you will go to bed now, I will play the Dichterliebe for you. I know that you love the music.’

‘Thank you.’ His eyes met mine for a second, and then he turned and limped out of the room. His step halted up the stair – he stopped twice, as if waiting – and then I heard him get into bed, leaving his door open. I drew my bow across the strings . . .

 _Ich hab' im Traum geweinet,_ sang the violin, plaintively, _mir träumte du lägest im Grab._ _Ich wachte auf, und die Träne_ _floß noch von der Wange herab._ I wept in my dreams, for I dreamed you were in your grave. I woke, and the tears still flowed.

I had to stop, and wipe my eyes then. The silence grew expectant, heavy. A waiting silence. _Ich hab' im Traum geweinet, mir träumt' du verließest mich._ _Ich wachte auf, und ich weinte noch lange bitterlich._ I wept in my dreams, for I dreamed you abandoned me. I woke, and wept long and bitterly. 

‘Sleep, Watson,’ I called up to him. ‘I shall not stop playing until you are asleep.’ I heard him rise, close his door softly, and return to bed. _Ich hab' im Traum geweinet, mir träumte du wär'st mir noch gut._ I swallowed hard. _Ich wachte auf, und noch immer strömt meine Tränenflut._ I wept in my dreams, for I dreamed you were still good to me. I woke, and even now falls my flood of tears.

Was he asleep? Would his dreams be gentle to him? Perhaps I had better stay up, to listen for him. He might need me to play for him again later.

 . . . ‘rest your cheek against my cheek,’ says the poet, Heine, for whose words Schumann wrote the music of the Dichterliebe, ‘then shall our tears flow together - and against my heart, press firmly your heart, so then together shall our flames beat. And when, into the great flame flows the stream of our tears, and when my arms hold you tight . . . I shall die of Love’s yearning.’

*****

By the end of August, Cornwall had been acquitted of the abominable crime: just as Watson had predicted, no medical man would pronounce there to be physical evidence of intercourse _per anum_ , moreover three of them stated that it was, as a matter of fact, impossible to perform a sodomitical act in a hansom cab. (I did confess to being intrigued as to that, I must confess: theoretically I could conceive of ways in which it might be possible, and I said as much to Watson. He looked at me with an expression I can only describe as simultaneously exasperated and amused, and uttered a wish that I should desist from speculation, stating that while he had no objection to sodomy in principle or indeed in practice providing that certain hygienic precautions were taken, he could not conceive of a more uncomfortable setting than a cab for any form of amorous intercourse, whether sodomitical or not. The mention of hygienic precautions effectively removed any further desire I had to speculate, and the discussion was dropped.)

Cornwall and Martin Kirwan, his old friend, were then tried for conspiracy to procure men for immoral purposes, but the jury could not agree on its verdict, and the case was set back to October, when French, whose sanity was still in doubt, might be assessed again for fitness to stand trial. Albert de Fernandez, the surgeon major in the army was acquitted on the sodomy charge. James Pillar, an elderly man of about seventy, who changed his plea on the felony count to guilty against the advice of his lawyers, was sentenced to twenty years penal servitude – a life sentence, or rather, for him, poor man, a death sentence since he would most certainly not survive it. Two indigent, and lower class, brothel keepers, one of them blind, were sentenced to two years with hard labour for keeping a disorderly house.

‘I am glad poor Jack was not called as a witness,’ said Watson to me, when we looked at the case reports some time afterwards. ‘It appears that since the conspiracy to procure was dated from Malcolm Johnstone’s accusation about the date of August ’81, and Jack’s association with both Cornwall and Kirwan was prior to that, his evidence was not needed. But what a blackguard Malcolm Johnstone is! He accused his own cousin of felony, he was instrumental in the downfall of poor Pillar, and Fernandez, poor fellow, was certainly in love with him, or he would not have given him the gold ring. The engraved message on it tells all.’

‘He has certainly shown his true colours,’ I said. ‘You will find many an honest whore but he is not one: a man with whom indulgence in the carnal pleasures cannot be relied upon not to lead to blackmail. Of all villains I detest a blackmailer most, I think.’

‘I am in agreement with you there, Homes,’ – he stretched out his feet to the fire, for it was raining heavily and he had just returned from the hospital. I poured us both a glass of the Vin Mariani he had recently bought, and he took his from me, smiling, captured my hand and tugged me down onto the sofa next to him. ‘Come and sit by me, my dear fellow. You seem quieter of late weeks, and so saddened. I wish I could do something to cheer you.’

‘I am saddened by the inequities I see in this case.’ I moved as close to him as I dared without touching him: I had resolved that I should not allow myself to solicit any caress, no matter how slight, either by word or deed. I had nearly, I feared, given myself away as an invert by the excessive emotion I had been unable to repress over the Cornwall trial. If Watson knew me plainly for one, no matter how kind he was, he might leave me. I could not risk him leaving me.

‘I know there were inequities. It is unjust that such disparate punishments have been handed out for such similar crimes.’

‘There was evidence against Cornwall, and evidence against Kirwan: clear evidence, that they had, in fact committed sodomy. The same holds true for Fernandez.  Yet Kirwan was never tried for sodomy, Cornwall and Fernandez were acquitted of it, and it has much to do with their standing in society – particularly Kirwan’s for he is of the nobility, albeit of the Irish nobility – and their wealth. Malcolm Johnstone and the other boys will not be tried for sodomy either, because they have turned Queen’s evidence and offered immunity for prosecution, yet  they have committed it. Their names have been blackened, their way of life used to cast doubt on their testimony, and they have been called liars because they are poor and go with men for money.’

‘I do not know what to think either,’ he said. ‘I did not want these men to be convicted of what I do not think is a sin or a crime. But I did not want their acquittal to come at the expense of injustice done to people of lower standing.’

‘And it is our testimony – our investigation about Meiklejohn, and the way in which he coerced, and suborned, and flattered and bullied the witnesses into testifying -  which has procured acquittal for Cornwall and Fernandez, and blackened the names of Johnstone, and Taylor, and McKiernan and Graham. Lestrade was right when he said it was a filthy business, with politics involved.’

‘The law is an ass, my dear fellow, and in this case it has been more than an ass, it has been an unjust ass. My belief is that when Cornwall and Kirwan come to trial again in October they will be acquitted. There is no stomach for convicting them: it casts too much of a shadow on the English administration in Ireland, and although William O’Brien wants that very much to happen, I believe the English parliament will not allow it.’ He patted my shoulder, ‘Finish your Mariani wine, Holmes. I know tonic wines are not much in your line, but I am of the opinion that you need a pick-me up, and this comes highly recommended. Indeed, her Majesty the Queen is used to drink it, and so are many other persons of note. It is much endorsed.’

‘It is not distasteful to me entirely,’ I said, sipping obediently. ‘What did you say was the tonic agent in it?’

‘This particular wine is prepared by steeping the leaves of a plant called erythroxylon coca,’ he replied. ‘It is an interesting substance, and one which I have only lately been made aware of. The coca is that plant historically used by the Inca of Peru to ward off fatigue: the leaves do not travel well, but steeping them in a good red wine produces a beverage which retains their effects, and is tonic into the bargain. Coca wine is much used now to ward off or remove fatigue or lowness of spirits, just as the quinine-fortified wines and bitters that I was accustomed to take in India were used to ward off malarial fevers.’

‘And what are supposed to be the effects? I perceive very little, other than that it is bitter, and rather numbs than stimulates my palate.’

‘Perhaps you might take another small glass?’ he suggested. ‘I am in hopes that it may brighten and cheer you up, my dear fellow, for it is completely harmless by all accounts. I would be glad to find something other than the morphine with which we might safely alleviate your moods. This coca wine may be just the thing.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turkey and Persia were crucial to Britain’s success in India. Afghanistan was contentious– Russia wanted to own it, & there were espionage issues between local rulers, Russian spies, & the British, with Russians supplying disaffected Afghan warlords with arms against Britain.  
> Moran gives false information to Talbot, the Resident of Bushire, to encourage him to intervene in Qatar's dispute with Turkey. The objective is to annoy Turkey & Qatar, Britain’s allies, & annoy the Persian Shah. The dispute really happened, Talbot intervened, Turkey & Qatar repudiated Britain’s interference in an internal matter & Talbot was left looking stupid. He resigned & was replaced shortly thereafter. Canonically, Sebastian Moran’s father was Sir Augustus Moran, KCIE, Ambassador to Persia, hence his connections.  
> Information about the Safars at Bayt Safar & the munshi, Muhammad Karim Sharif is accurate. They were wealthier than British India's officials. It suited merchant families in Persia & India to take a nominal role as ‘agents’ of the British government. It afforded them favoured status, offered them the protection of the government, & enabled them to control what information was relayed to it. Some were educated in England, & spoke better English than British officials spoke Parsi, Arabic or Urdu. Political issues referenced in Mycroft’s letters are taken from the relevant dates in Hansard.  
> I have been guilty of an anachronism for the sake of artistic licence. The poem Watson quotes in his heartfelt letter is 12th century (it is Pierre Abelard’s poem ‘David’s Lament for Jonathan Slain’) The translation is by Helen Waddell in ‘Mediaeval Latin Lyrics’and was, of course, not written in Watson’s time.  
> Cornwall was acquitted of sodomy, but immediately retried, with his friend Kirwan, for conspiracy to procure men for immoral purposes. Albert de Fernandez, an army surgeon-major was also tried for sodomy. James Pillar, an elderly Quaker, was tried for sodomy, and so was a young man called Johnstone Little, the cousin of Malcolm Johnstone . . . who was the person who reported all of these men to the detective, Meiklejohn. Meiklejohn comes out of this scandal very badly – bully, sneak, coward & blackmailer, responsible for the flight to Europe of at least two other men reported as sodomites by Malcolm Johnstone (Robert Farquharson & Richard Boyle, both wealthy bankers.) Malcolm Johnstone comes out infinitely worse. Both Fernandez & Boyle were in love with him – Fernandez bought him a gold ring inscribed ‘In memoriam, Mally from Juan’ – and he betrayed both of them.  
> Lestrade’s daughter had a tubercular infection of the hip, very common in children.  
> The Universal Suffrage bill was eventually passed, widening the franchise, but not to all men, nor to women. Queen Victoria termed women’s rights a ‘wicked folly’, and did in fact badger Gladstone, the Prime Minister, whom she disliked, unmercifully about them.  
> In the early 1880s, a slump in trading conditions made the diamond trade less profitable. Julius Wernher, a merchant employed by Jules Porgès et Cie, was concerned about Wynert and Company undercutting him by selling more cheaply. Information about mines in Kimberley is correct and sourced from Wernher’s writings. Henry Judson Raymond, was also a real person, as was Rosenthal Cronon, and I do beg you not to find out too much about them. We have not finished with diamonds.  
> Watson’s shooting demonstration was one of Annie Oakley’s sharp-shooting feats!  
> The Norfolk was one of the early screw steamers, sailing from the new Parkeston Quay at Harwich to Antwerp. There is nothing wrong with hutsepot, one of those useful one-pot peasant stews. Holmes is just a fussy eater. Holmes' discoveries about the diamonds are authentic, as is the treatment of the white and black mine workers.  
> We don’t know much about Holmes’ childhood yet, but becoming upset when he is reading about the loving relationship between the fictional character Morel and his son is an indicator that it wasn't good. This is the nearest he has come to telling Watson anything about it.  
> Mr Hugh Holmes, QC was the lawyer who defended Cornwall. Mr David Sherlock the lawyer who defended French. Tell me ACD did not know that?  
> The case is a genuine 2 year old cold case, solved by microscopic examination of tools Orrock left at the crime scene. He was re-tried for murder on 15.09.84 & hanged.  
> Vin Mariani - read the adverts! Everyone swore by it, including Queen Victoria, a couple of Popes, authors (Jules Verne!) & Thomas Edison. Incidentally, in Vienna a young man named Freud has just published a paper ‘Uber Coca’ – On Cocaine – in which he details his own use of it, and how useful it is that it has no side effects worth mentioning.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW Historical Drug Use

Since First I Saw Your Face Part 10

**Bushire to Shiraz.**

**Holmes is not used to writing his thoughts down, but his mind is in such turmoil that he cannot refrain. For two years he has been unable to confide in a soul. Mycroft, despite his fraternal affection, he considers an unsafe correspondent, for in all his dealings he is actuated predominantly by _amor patriae,_ and will always choose a course of action which benefits his country, rather than his brother. Holmes can trust him as far as ensuring Watson does not meet an untimely demise: he cannot trust him to allow sentiment to outweigh political expediency.**

**He left Bushire two days ago, and is now well on his way into the interior. He has been transported, courtesy of the Munshi, by boat to the dilapidated caravanserai of Shif, where muleteers will conduct him – again by courtesy of the Safar family and the Munshi – from the swamps and mud of that uninviting shore up the precipitous steeps of four _kotals,_ narrow-cut stairways in the rock, to the more salubrious central plateau in which is set Shiraz. There is no other transport that will serve him, and after two days travel, he has already gained a new understanding of the term ‘mulish’. Clever, steady and surefooted as his mule mare is, she is also opinionated, and her bony back, padded by an inadequate saddle cloth, makes for an uncomfortable ride. Were he not saddle-sore and sea-sick, he might laugh at himself, for she is short, and his long legs dangle nearly to the ground.**

**(Back in Bushire, meanwhile, Talbot has disgraced himself by his interference in the argument between Turkey and Qatar, and has had to sulk and scowl his way ignominiously back to the Residence, where he is awaiting the successor Mycroft has organised. Holmes’ only satisfaction is that that he may now be less ready to listen to Sebastian Moran.)**

**The mare, Laleh, side-steps a little, and Holmes sways in the saddle and rights himself, one hand going to the breast of his robe where next to his heart he carries Watson’s letter. He had telegraphed, of course, to Mycroft, immediately he had received it: a terse message.**

**_If you allow him to die,_ ** **he had written, _I will never forgive you._**

**Later that night, he writes, erasing and redrafting, on flimsy, fibrous paper that clogs the steel nib.**

**_My dear John,_ **

**_You will always be John to me now. My John. My dearest John._ **

**_I do not know how to tell you that I am not dead. That I did not die in Reichenbach’s waters and that you must not either. Please do not die, John. Wait for me: I will return._ **

**_I do not know how to tell you why I disappeared from your life, and allowed you to believe me dead. What seemed then to be both expedient and proper and just, now seems to me to be arrant cowardice, and the most condign cruelty. I was wrong, I who prided myself on my understanding. It seems to me now that never truly saw you. I never understood the nature of your affection for me. And I was blinded by my fear. I wanted you to love me, but I was afraid._ **

**_I do not know how to tell you why, in all this time I have not written to you._ ** **_Several times during the last two years I have taken up my pen to write to you, but always I feared lest ~~your affectionate regard for me should tempt you to some indiscretion which would betray my secret~~. No, let me in this at least be honest. I feared lest my more than affectionate regard for you should tempt me to some indiscretion which would betray my secret. I did not know that you too had a secret._ **

**_I do not know how I might be able to tell you my secret now: I deserve nothing from you in return for it.  I have guarded it too well, I fear._ **

**_I do not know how not to tell you my secret, John. It thunders in my breast, throbbing with my heart’s desperate hope, a vain hope that will not be repressed..  And I cannot ask now for your secret: how can I merit it, after what I have done? I barely have hope you will receive me again with friendship, after such treachery._ **

**_John, cor cordium, will you forgive me? Here beats a wayward, faulty heart as penitent as a man’s may well be. Can it be received once more, and taken to yours, to your own sheltering, wounded, loving heart? To your heart that I never understood was already mine?_ **

**_John, your letter.  What have I done? For God’s sake do not die._ **

**Holmes has made only twenty five miles in the day. When he dismounts at the palm-girdled village of Borazjun, having traversed the swamps near Shif, and the dusty, dry, salt flats along the route to the caravanserai, he is so stiff he has to hold on to Laleh’s decorated bridle and steady himself. She turns her head to nose at him gently. He feeds her a scrap of bread from his pocket, patting her velvety muzzle, and he is so low in his mind that even the sympathy of a cross-grained mule brings him near to weeping. The muleteers are a surly lot: he is well aware that if it were not that they owe allegiance to the Safars, and he is the Safars’ protégé, he would be in imminent danger of being robbed, knifed, and left to bleed out on the roadside. He hands Laleh to his least objectionable escort – a doe-eyed, strikingly beautiful boy named Dariush, after the emperor of old - and enquires where he is to go. Dariush clicks his tongue in exasperation, summons his younger brother to lead the mule away to the lines, and silently takes Holmes to bargain for one of the safer, upstairs apartments in the stone court. They go first through the market, where Holmes stops to buy flat bread, dates, salted white cheese, and two skewers of grilled mutton laced with a thick pomegranate molasses.**

**Washed, fed, and alone in his room, he again retrieves Watson’s letter. He carries it to the window, and looks out. The swift night darkens the distant mountains into shadows. Lamps wink white and gold across the town; voices rise from the courtyard where groups of men sit around braziers of charcoal. The air, cooler now, brings him the scent of herbs and tobacco, smoke and dung and spice. He craves his opium, to sink into its soft embrace, to forget and dream, but he does not dare to be less than alert, so he writes, writes . . .**

**_My dear John,_ **

**_I do not know how I missed that there was more to the kindness and affection you showed me. You say that you grieved me not as a friend, but as a spouse. I believed that it was only I that loved, and you that liked. My heart was fast: I could not disentangle it. And it became intolerable, John, a torment without end._ **

**_I could not. I could not show you. I dared not let you know how I wanted you. How you stirred me  – how I burned. I tried to conceal it with morphine first. I took it to quell my shameful desire: you know how ill that went. And after there was the cocaine, to my great shame._ **

**_My dear John, if I had allowed myself . . . if I had but once turned to you Perhaps – there were certain nights when I almost believed. If I had touched you in that way  – would you then have turned to me?_ **

*********

**The following morning, after passing through crowds of ferocious looking men with pistols in their belts – for the inhabitants of the town are, according to Dariush, much given to banditry, and always go armed – and cheerful, barefoot boys playing hockey on the stony ground, Holmes stops at the telegraph station before taking the road onwards to Daliki. He has made Mycroft promise to telegraph any news.**

**_No change, is the terse message. She is holding her own. He is in constant attendance. I remain on watch. Moran was reported leaving Firuzebad three days since. Will outpace you. Sykes warned arrival imminent, and to delay Moran._ **

**Damn Moran and all his works, thinks Holmes, as he hauls himself wearily onto Laleh. Damn Moran, and dead Moriarty, and Mycroft, and damn duty. Damn the British government, damn England, damn the world: let it perish in fire and ash, so that I have but one night, one hour, even, to hold John, to kiss his mouth, to touch lip to lip, consenting. One hour, even to hold his hand. One moment to fall once more on my knees and beg for his kindness and grace.**

**The road winds on, undulating in gentle curves but tending ever upwards. Just before he reaches Daliki, it crosses an improbably emerald coloured stream smelling strongly of sulphur and adorned by a bituminous scum: this is an oleiferous region, and a few years ago efforts were made to bore deep in search of petroleum springs. None were found, but the excavations and diggings still move sporadically onward, and the small telegraph rest house is crowded with miners of several nationalities – including, Holmes notes, both Russian and German. But by the time he reaches Daliki, he can do no more. His escorts are not unhappy to rest: they are paid by the day, and the more days he takes over the journey, the more they will earn.  He retreats to the cupboard-size, and extraordinarily expensive, room he has obtained, and gives himself up to miserable contemplation.**

**_My dear John,_ **

**_I read your letter again tonight. (Is it a letter? Or is it, perhaps, a confession?) The paper is soft at the corners now, and the edges are beginning to be rubbed. I have wept over it: the ink is smudged._ **

**_I have asked Dariush to procure me a small piece of silk, if such is to be had, and I shall make shift to sew it into an envelope. If this is all I am ever to have of your heart, I shall wear and cherish it lifelong next to mine. For I cannot hope that you will forgive me, John, when I have made you suffer so. The more I think of it, the more I am convinced that I will never win your forgiveness. And how could you love me again, after this? After these years, after my silence?_ **

**From Daliki, the road to Shiraz rises over fifteen hundred feet to Konar Takhteh. It leads upwards through a ravine well-watered enough, but redolent of sulphur, follows the Daliki river up a barren gorge, and crosses it by means of a fine stone bridge of six arches – a bridge guarded by a seedy-looking character with whom the muleteers exchange unsmiling insults before demanding money from Holmes to pay the unauthorised toll. Past the bridge, for a brief hour, the walking is pleasant: the area is irrigated by the tumbling waters, and green with the verdure of spring. Laleh drops to a lazy amble, occasionally putting her head down to snatch at the grass, and after more than once nearly pitching over her narrow withers, Holmes dismounts and walks for a while, allowing the beast to graze her fill. Dariush and Hamid whoop and run, springing from rock to rock, and splashing though the river shallows. When Jamshid, the lead muleteer, suggests a brief pause for luncheon, Holmes assents. There are fish rising to the fly, and before long, grilling over a makeshift fire.**

**Afterwards, Holmes retreats to the shade and contemplates his fellow travellers. ‘ _They say,’_ he murmurs to himself, ‘ _they say the lion and the lizard keep the courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep, and Bahram, that great hunter – the wild ass stamps o’er his head, and he lies fast asleep . . .’_ Jamshid raises his head at the mention of his name but returns to his contemplative pipe when Holmes makes no further move to attract his attention. Their break is a short one though, for the Kotal-i-Mallu, the ‘accursed pass’ is before them.**

**The path, a steep, narrow stair cut and worn into the rock is too precipitous for anything but a mule train. There are very few handholds for those ascending it on foot, but Holmes cannot, in all conscience, burden the slender-legged mule with his weight. He walks, before long reduced to a stop and start progression, breath coming short, calf muscles on fire, veins throbbing in his temples, sweat pouring from him.**

**If he had his cocaine, he thinks wryly, remembering his and Watson’s investigations into the drug and its extraordinary power to negate the effects of increased altitude and fatigue, he would spring up the narrow declivity like a young goat. But he has only opium and hashish, and their dreamy complacency will not serve him now: he needs the fierce energy of his seven per cent solution. (At one point, unknown to Watson, he increased it to twelve per cent, but found that the mental clarity it produced was offset too strongly by the severe tachycardia, and the depression after the drug.)**

**By the end of the ascent his heart labours hard, and he can barely summon the strength to walk into the caravanserai of Konar Takhteh, where he falls exhausted into the first bed he find, and sleeps both supperless and unwashed.**

**_My dear John,_ **

**_I have always loved you. I do now, with all my heart, love you. I will always love you, while breath is in me._ **

**_When – if – I return, for sometimes I think that I shall never be able to return, I dream of being able to live once again in our rooms in Baker Street. When I contemplate, now, the way we lived, I see that we were, in truth, wedded. Our deepest affections were directed solely towards each other: those on our periphery to whom we were kind, whom we allowed to share our lives, we admitted with a mutual understanding that they would never encroach upon our allegiance to each other._ **

**_Our lives were indissolubly linked, both in the material, domestic world, and in those realms of the heart and spirit where men are most themselves with a beloved companion. All that we lacked was the bodily consummation that marks the admitted marriage. I will not say that I was your wife, John, nor you mine, for we did not play those parts as do the molly boys in London’s bawdy houses. I will not say that you played the husband, for nor did I, only that in our souls, without understanding when, or how, or why, we had become espoused._ **

**_And then . . . and then we were parted, ripped asunder by circumstances, by choice, by misunderstandings. I thought it was only I who bled, John. I did not see that you too were slowly bleeding to death. I, who prided myself on my perspicacity, saw only what I wished to see._ **

**The road from Konar Takhteh to Kamarij passes through the plain of Khisht. Weary and sad as he is, Holmes cannot but feel, the following morning, that his soul takes comfort from the extreme beauty of the plateau. Its stony soils, so dun and dry for most of the year, are clad in May’s bright raiment of flower: red poppies, larkspur, daisies, wild oats, pinks, mallows, convolvulus and a host of other species riot among the sparse fields of grain. In the distance is the glint of the Shapur river, along which he will ride. The mountains surrounding the plain are as colourful as the fields, their scenery singularly wild and grand, split by mighty fissures almost perpendicular to the plain, streaked and bedded in multi-coloured marls.**

**The ascent of the Kotal-i-Kamarij is almost too much for him. It rises 1,200 feet in less than a mile, and the track is so narrow that in many places an ascending and descending mule cannot pass each other. He heaves himself upwards, placing unsteady feet in narrow steps worn by the sharp little hooves of generations of mules. He has to stop twice, spots dancing and darkening before his eyes, and his breath halting. Dariush brings him water, wipes his forehead, and after a while he can go on. He rides the last couple of miles into Kamarij apologising to poor, exhausted Laleh all the way, before stopping at the telegraph rest house to pick up the latest news from home.**

**_Moran has reached Shiraz, and is being held by Sykes against your arrival,_ ** **writes Mycroft. _Both John and Mary Watson have succumbed to the prevailing influenza. Her death is imminent. He is gravely ill, but is not presently considered to be in danger. I have sent the best doctors. Courage, brother. Do not fail now._**

*****

We entered the year 1885 quietly, in a welcome lull after the storms of 1884. I was desperately glad to be shot of the wretched Dublin Castle Scandal, which had ended, as Watson had predicted, in the October acquittal of both Cornwall and Kirwan on charges of conspiring to procure men for immoral purposes. Cornwall attempted to have the libel trial heard again, but was set down smartly by a judge, who told him that although he had been found not guilty of sodomy, he had without a doubt been guilty of equally abhorrent practices, and should not, as the vernacular has it, chance his luck. He retired to his wife’s and brother-in law’s estates, there to lick his wounds, and nurse, if rumour were true, a syphilis of some virulence.

James Ellis French had been declared sane, and had stood his trial in December. Against him, the evidence was incontrovertible, and he was sentenced to two years hard labour. Kirwan and Fernandez were broken from the army, and their reputations ruined. Malcolm Johnstone, who in the interval between the August and the November trials had moved from place to place in Ireland under the lax supervision of Meiklejohn, drinking, gaming and whoring – he left one girl with child thus displaying a commendable lack of discrimination in his unsavoury amours – descended into a deserved obscurity along with McKiernan of the beautiful voice, Graham, Clark, and the other, lesser, actors in the farce. Jack Saul returned to London.

But the damage had been done. Not to my friendship with Watson – we went on very kindly together, in the gentlest of domesticities – but to the English government, and to the public perception of men whose primary affiliations were with other men. Society had become aware of a culture that lay beneath the world it knew and respected.

‘There have always been such men of course,’ said Mycroft to me one sharp February evening. ‘It has not been generally remarked. Now it will be, most particularly by the press.’ He turned his wineglass in his massive hand, the swirling meniscus of the burgundy catching a glint from the firelight. ‘It has always been there. If only the world would leave well alone. They do no harm to anyone, these men who love other men. Yet it is, men say, forbidden in the Bible, and the good book is sacrosanct. We must all bow to its shibboleths. And much as I respect, as one must respect, the crown, there is no denying that Her present Majesty has all the religious fervour of a very good bourgeoise housewife. Once she is offended, and prims that stubborn little mouth of hers in outrage, there is no moving her on a moral issue. She has been more than twenty years parted by death from her sainted Albert, and her sympathies with the unusual narrow year on year. She would not stand our friend, if it came to a battle.’

‘I am shocked to hear you say so.’ I was, in truth, astounded: Mycroft had never unbent so far as to offer criticism of the anointed monarch he had served with such devotion. ‘You surprise me very much, brother.’

‘My dear Sherlock, you are an observant man. You must know what and who I am. We have never spoken of it - ’

‘ – and I beg that we will continue not to speak of it, Mycroft: I can think of nothing more productive of an acute sense of _gêne_ than to have such a conversation with my older sibling. It is as if our late unlamented parents were to endeavour to enlighten me as to the mechanics of copulation - ’

‘Really, Sherlock, I had not thought you so qualmish: very well I shall not say all that I intended. But it is not my intention to live celibate all my life, and I am concerned about the future for those of our – I say our, for you cannot deceive me, brother – of our kind. And when the monarch of this country espouses a bourgeois morality that stifles even as it censures, I will not simply stand by and allow it to happen. How is your doctor, by the way?’

‘He is himself, as he always is, and my friend.’

‘No more?’

‘Really, brother, as if I would tell you even if there were. But no. We are friends and no more. He thinks me too pure for such gross carnality, too high to stoop and too cerebral for sentimental attachments. And although he is sympathetic, he is not more than fond of me in a brotherly way.’

‘Oh, my poor Sherlock.’ I thought at first that he mocked me, but there was an honest gentleness in his voice. He was always kind to me, despite, or perhaps because of, our difference in age: had it not been for him, after all, I would have received shorter shrift than I did from our family after my disastrous time at university. ‘I am sorry.’

‘It is no matter.’ I turned the subject, not wanting further discussion of my non-existent _amours_. ‘You, I perceive, are in rather more promising case. That very elegant signet ring you wear was not father’s I think.’

‘It was not.’ He turned away. ‘I think – I hope – nay, I do believe – that I am about to be – singularly fortunate.’

‘Then I am glad for you, brother Mycroft. Happy.’ That was enough sentiment. ‘I must also thank you for your assistance in the matter of Lestrade’s child.’

‘You could have had more than that, Sherlock, I have told you often and often. The estate in Surrey goes well, bringing in more each year: it prospers finely. And the Cornish property fetched more than I expected. Half of all of that is yours by moral right, if not by will and legal testament.’

‘You know I will take nothing of that man’s. I would not have accepted your guineas for the child had it not been to please J – Watson. You must know.’

‘I do.’ He sighed. ‘Sherlock, I would that you would endeavour not to hate my father so much. Or our mother. They died because of what she did, it is true, but she was very ill, and – not herself.’

‘She was cruel and unyielding and wicked, and so was he. He never defended me – why should he, after all - but turned a blind eye to my misery, my loneliness and isolation. I will not talk of them, Mycroft, they are better forgotten. You know.’

‘Alas, yes. I do know. And it will always be a matter of regret to me that I was not aware of what – I might have been aware of, and that I did so little to help when you were young, and in extremity. But the money is still your right; it is still there, still waiting for you.

‘Let it wait then.’ I rose, wanting only to get away now. ‘Let it wait until it rots. I must go, brother, we are to dine at Mancini’s. I daresay you and I shall meet again soon.’

‘Perhaps with your doctor,’ he suggested, smiling gently. ‘I have still not met this man who is your dear companion, Sherlock.’

‘It is unlikely,’ I opened the door. ‘We are much occupied of late. Mycroft . . .’

‘What is it, Sherlock?’

‘You should not distress yourself. You were barely more than a child yourself, and then you were at school. It is not your fault that you did not know. I do not blame you for anything.’

‘I know, brother, but I do blame myself. Go back to your doctor now. I trust you pass a pleasant evening. And I shall endeavour to put into place those enquiries you asked for. Henry Judson,’ he shuddered delicately at the plebeian name, ‘Raymond. The Navigator, and Mr Greatman. I will not forget.’

*****

I had lied to Mycroft, of course. Watson was more than fond of me in a brotherly way. He was devoted, a comrade without price and without peer. Whatever ailed me, he cared for me tenderly, his hands gentle on fever flushed skin, or bruised bone. He quickened to my every move: did I falter, he was there. He was swift to praise and slow to blame, as no-one had ever been with me. Why was it then, that I did not put my fate in his hands? I could not tell, only that I – would not. That I was afraid.

‘ _“Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition,”_ ’ murmured Watson. He touched my hand, next to his on the bar of the Strangers’ Gallery which we had attended to listen to Sir William Harcourt pronounce on the late events in Devon to the assembled members. ‘Watch these men, Holmes, see how they vie with each other. _“By that sin fell the angels.”_ And the pride of them, as they bestride the world. Yet they are no Colossi -  they would sooner reign in hell than serve in heaven. Is it the Babbacombe decision next?

‘Indeed.’ I moved my hand a little nearer to his: I wanted to clasp it and hold it in mine – madness in a public place, let alone a place of government. ‘Watson, you are in a strange, quoting humour today: not only Shakespeare but Milton; as ill-assorted a pair as you could find. We should read later, perhaps. Yes, it is our decision. I do trust that Sir William will uphold the decision that John Lee should not be hanged. To escape the scaffold by mischance three times, and then to fall at last on the word of a mere politician would be cruel. But hush, he is speaking now.’

‘I am grateful that the decision rests,’ said Watson, a little later, as we made our way down the stairs. Any man who is to be hanged and has had the noose fail thrice surely deserves a reprieve, even if he be guilty. But you, I think, have a different reason for welcoming this decision. Will you take my arm, Holmes?’ He crooked his elbow, inviting my touch.

‘I have,’ I tucked my hand in his arm. ‘I do not think that John Lee murdered Emma Keyse, for all the evidence against him. I do not think that we will ever know who did, but I know upon whom, if I were a betting man, I should place my money, and that is that exceedingly shady solicitor of his, Reginald Templar. It is clear to me that the man was involved with Keyse’s cook, he was undoubtedly present at the time of the murder, and his offering to represent Lee was suspicious in the extreme. I have expressed my doubts about the case to Lestrade, and he has made representations, but the Exeter force has not chosen to listen to us. If only it were possible to tie matter left at the scene of the crime to a particular suspect – my little haemoglobin reactant can prove that blood is human, not animal, but that is not enough in this case - if it were only possible to find a sign, or print in that blood, a unique identifying marker that spoke of one person, and one only, then how much easier would it be not to hang a man for a crime of which he is innocent. I am convinced that Lee did not kill Emma Keyse – but I cannot prove it.’

‘It distresses you, does it not?’ He placed his other hand over mine, patting it gently. ‘One of the things I most admire about you, Holmes, is your fine passion for justice. And that you never stop attempting to ensure it. I wish there were indeed a print in the blood, but I cannot see how that should be. Perhaps men in the future may find such. But if you are content with this outcome, let us return home. I have procured a most interesting monograph on the coca plant for our perusal today.’

I could not prevent my colour from rising at his warm praise: his admiration was inexpressibly sweet to me. Nor could I resist angling for more. ‘Indeed? And do you think that your German will be up to reading it, my dear Watson, or will you be relying on my prowess as a translator?’

He let out a crack of laughter. ‘I can keep nothing from you, Holmes. Yes, of course it is in German: now tell me by what deductive process you have concluded that. Is it that you are ahead of me in my search and have found an alternative source of information, or that you are employing some mysterious process of divination? I hoped to surprise you, but I see I cannot.’

We had left the House by now, and were walking – briskly, for the weather was inclement, and the sun almost setting – through St James’ Park. I leaned a little closer, seeking his warmth, the solid bulwark of his side against mine.

‘It is partly that I too have been pursuing my researches, and have discovered that many of the papers written on the subject are by Germans, but it is also that during our recent visit to Dupré you enquired whether he had any contacts in Vienna who might be able to procure you some information. You later asked me whether we possessed a German dictionary, and requested advice on the correct valediction for a letter to a colleague. Yesterday you received a flat, quarto-sized parcel with a German stamp on it which you removed hurriedly from the table when I returned from sending Billy with a message to Johnson, and secreted under the papers by your chair with an air at once anticipatory, delighted and guilty. We had been discussing the desirability of obtaining some further information about the plant, erythroxylon coca, since one cannot drink Vin Mariani forever, and some further method of testing the efficacy of the drug seems desirable. It was therefore no great deduction to assume that you had decided to pre-empt me in doing so, had obtained the information, and were planning to present me with a surprise.’

He laughed and bumped his shoulder gently against mine, sending a frisson of agreeable heat through me, despite the chilly weather.

‘But it could have been all for my use,’ he teased me, his eyes alight with affection. ‘You cannot be certain that it was not for my use, after all, Holmes. Why do you not deduce that I have squirrelled my little paper away for private perusal, and that that was the cause of my guilt?’

‘You would not.’ I pressed his arm as tenderly as I dared. ‘A more generous man never existed: you would not deprive me of an intellectual delight: it is not in you. You did exactly as I deduced you would, saved our treat for a time when my mind would be free of care to enjoy it. And of course I will translate for you, my dear Watson: we will be learning about this new wonder drug together. If what is said is true, it promises to be of unparalleled benefit to mankind. Reports abound of it curing all manner of depressions and neurasthenias, of it weaning addicts from their opium and their alcohol. Of confirmed and dedicated morphinists relinquishing their drug without a murmur, and of no harm ensuing from their use of the alkaloid derived from our plant. Muriate of cocaine! What a blessing it is proving to be to so many!’

‘I am almost sorry the plant is too tender for our climate; else it might with advantage be grown here so that we should have our own supply of the drug,’ he replied. ‘Holmes, the gutter there is overflowing, change sides with me, or you will be muddied and wet. My boots are stouter than yours. There, my dear man, that is better for you. Now take my arm again, and let us be comfortable. Alas, as it is, the price of the purified alkaloid is prohibitive to all but the rich, I regret to say.’

‘We must afford some do you not think? When so many extol its benefits, what harm can there be in trying it?’

‘The medical profession is certainly loud in its praise, although I desire that we should be at least a little cautious, my dear fellow. We have both previously suffered from morphinist tendencies; I do not want us to travel that road again. But by all verified and serious accounts, the drug does not produce a like effect. When I spoke to Dupré he was loud in the praise of a monograph published last year by a young man in Vienna, a Doctor Freud, which he possesses and has promised to lend me. Freud does not find that it produces addiction, indeed he has seen with his own eyes its efficacy in treating morphinism. And it appears that another Vienna doctor, Koller, has used a solution of cocaine to infiltrate the eye, producing an anaesthesia that allows cataract removal without pain.’

‘Is it Koller’s account you have obtained?’

‘No, that is to arrive shortly: I had to send separately for it. Mine is an account by an army doctor, Theodor Aschenbrandt, which pre-dates the work by Freud and Koller by a year or so. Dupré tells me the man experimented with giving it to soldiers on manoeuvres with some striking results. I confess, I cannot wait to read it. The world is desperately in need of an analgesic that does not have the deleterious effects of opium. As I have said to you before, I use morphine on my patients in fear and trembling, lest in removing their pain I subject them to a worse, and eternal, bondage.’

‘Then let us hurry home,’ I said to him. ‘For I have a surprise for you also.’

He laughed again, clear and merry. ‘And of course I have had no idea that you were preparing it, my dear friend. How easy I am to deceive after all! I thought myself to be so clever in obtaining this little offering for you, and all the time, you have been playing me at my own game. Yes, let us hurry home. It will be a wild night: the storm is already rising. We will be better indoors, with a fire, and our experiments and a glass of wine.’

‘And not Vin Mariani,’ I said to him. ‘I find it palls after a while: one has neither the drug unadulterated, nor a decent wine. A bottle of Beaune, I think tonight, and our gifts to each other to explore.’

*****

We did not, in fact, pursue our pharmacological researches any further that evening, for a most interesting and distressing case supervened. Upon our arrival home, we were met at the door by Mrs Hudson, who advised us that she had shown a lady into our rooms, with whom she had been awaiting our return for the last half-hour. ‘And I did not like to leave her alone, for she was labouring under some anxiety.’

‘Is she a young lady?’ enquired Watson. ‘I am sure you have done the right thing, Mrs Hudson, but I am very sorry we have inconvenienced you. Holmes, let us go instantly upstairs, and discover what is required of us.’

I did not reply, but thanked Mrs Hudson, gave orders for tea, a small cold collation and the madeira to be brought up (for the hour was now advanced) and preceded Watson up the stairs. As I entered our room, our visitor, who had been standing by the fireplace, turned to us. She was of more than middle years – I judged in her fifth decade – and dressed in the height of fashion, but with an elegance and restraint more like a French than an English woman. Her countenance expressed kindness, humour and force of character: the eyes that were assessing us as we entered were shrewd and resolute. She stepped forward at once, offering her hand very frankly in a manner that was almost masculine in its directness.

‘Mr Holmes, I do beg that you will forgive this intrusion so late in the afternoon. I am in need of advice, and your name was given to me as a man who might provide it by an old friend of Sir Robert’s. I am sure you do not know me, but I am . . .’

‘Unless I am mistaken you are Laura, Lady Sheffield, my Lady. Pray be seated: Mrs Hudson will bring tea, and then you may be comfortable. I see from your shoes that you have chosen to visit us on foot rather than use your carriage, so I take it that your husband is not aware of this visit. Whatever your need, I can assure you that both my colleague, Dr Watson, and I will treat anything you wish to say to us in the utmost confidentiality.’ I touched her outstretched hand briefly. ‘I am happy that Mrs Hudson has taken good care of you. Are you warm enough, Lady Laura?’

‘Indeed, Mr Holmes, your housekeeper has been most kind.’ She turned to Watson, who bowed over her hand with a courtly grace that became him very well. ‘You are a doctor, Sir? It could not be better. The matter about which I come to Mr Holmes is a delicate one, where a doctor’s opinion might be of use. I beg that you will do me the kindness of remaining. And as you surmise, Mr Holmes, I have come without the knowledge of my husband. He is in delicate health at the moment, and I did not wish to worry him, so I had to take what chance I could. I ask your assurance of secrecy, Sir.’

‘Granted, my Lady. But it is not about you or your husband that you wish to consult with us? Or am I mistaken? You are anxious, but it is not about yourself or Sir Robert. Do be seated, Lady Laura, and let us discuss whatever pressing matter it is that has brought you out so late, and in such weather.’

‘You are correct, Mr Holmes, it is a pressing matter.’ Our visitor sat down, removing her gloves, at which she stared with an abstracted air before placing them on the table before her. ‘And I do not quite know how to begin. It will seem to you that I am interfering in a matter which is not my concern, but I really do not know what to do. You see, I am about to be called to witness in a trial which could mean either liberty or continuing confinement in an institution for a dear young friend of mine, and I do not know in the least what to say for the best when I am asked to give my opinion.’

‘The truth, surely,’ Watson said gently, before I could answer. ‘Do I take it you mean medical confinement, Lady Laura? You speak of confinement on the grounds of insanity, perhaps?’

‘’I do, Sir. The lady in question is already not at liberty, and her husband is asking for their marriage to be dissolved on the grounds that she was insane when she married him.’

I turned to retrieve that morning’s paper. ‘Of course: the Earl of Durham’s suit against his wife is to come on in the Divorce Courts tomorrow. I am aware of it. And you are called as a witness? But what do you wish me to do in the case? I am a consulting detective, not an alienist. And, forgive me, I cannot act on the word of a friend. I have not been retained by either of the principals in this case – her guardian _ad litem_ is her brother, is he not? I have no power here to alter any outcome.’

‘But I have been told, Mr Holmes, that you understand human nature, none better, and can reason out what may have transpired. I do not wish you to intervene directly: matters have progressed too far for that. My dear young friend, the Countess Ethel, whom I have known since she was a merry, romping little girl, has already been confined to an institution. I have seen her there, and I fear there may be nothing to be done: more wretched a change in one I knew well I have never seen. But I wish to lay the facts of the case before you, and to understand, if I may, what has led to this change. Then I may know if I can ameliorate her state, or if not, at least provide what solace and care I may in her situation. And I wish for justice for her, if nothing else. For I do not believe that she was ever insane, but has been made so by her most unfortunate marriage.’

‘Then let us consider the matter carefully, Lady Laura, and I will give you my best attention. But I am glad Dr Watson is here, for I am no medical man. Indeed, we will not do so well without him, I assure you: as a conductor of light in these travels into dark places, he is of incomparable value.’

‘Then I may lay the case before you freely?’

‘With absolute confidence.’

‘By all means: if there is anything we can shed light on, we shall be most happy to help. Mr Holmes can unravel any tangle, you know.’ Watson leaned forward and patted her hand. ‘But let us sit and be comfortable, and then when we are finished, we will ensure that you return home safely. It will not do to have you walking the streets again in this weather: your husband would never forgive us for allowing it.’

Our visitor smiled gratefully at him, and I suppressed an completely irrational flare of jealousy. He had such an easy, gentle way with women that I felt myself becoming increasingly solemn and reserved almost in reaction. My understanding of the fair sex in all its motivations and methods was not deficient, but I could not be comfortable with women. Due chivalry and courtesy -  those I could summon at will: comfort in their presence and true ease of manner failed me and, I feared, ever would.

‘Holmes, my dear fellow, come out of your brown study, and say whether you will take tea or madeira?’ I had been lost in my musings for some moments, it appeared, for a tray stood on the table, and he had already served our visitor. ‘I have recommended to Lady Laura that she should take Madeira; it is late for tea. What will you have?’

‘I need nothing. Will you tell me your story, Lady Laura? Leave nothing out, I beg you, that may be of importance. I know that the Earl of Durham was married more than two years ago now, but I have no knowledge of events subsequent to that marriage. Nor do I know anything of his unfortunate bride.’

‘Her name is Ethel. She was born Ethel Milner, and it is under that name her husband seeks an annulment, as if she were never truly married to him. But she was indeed married, for I myself was there to see it, and if she evinced no great joy in the union, why, she is a shy and reserved creature and may not a bride be shy? We though nothing of it, truly, for she appeared at all points to be as sane as you or I.’

‘And you have known her as a child? For how long? Was ever there any evidence of functional irregularity, of defect of temper; any strangeness that might lead you to consider her out of her senses? For no annulment can be given unless there is non-consummation, or an incapacity to give consent.’

‘I have known her since birth, Dr Watson, and seen her grow: she is some years older than my own children. No, there was never anything. She was, as I said to you at first, a merry thing, joyous and active  – almost what the French would term a _‘garçon manqué’_ – and was used to run, and skip, play ball, or battledore and shuttlecock, and ride her pony to hounds like any other child, There was never any indication of temper, only that as she grew older, she became very shy in company, a little withdrawn.’

‘Would you say she was of normal intelligence? That she had capacity?’

‘As much as any imperfectly schooled girl can, Mr Holmes. She had an English schooling, with French, and a little German, and all the common accomplishments of girlhood. She wrote a pretty hand, and was fond of corresponding with friends; there was never anything strange in her then. She played the piano well, and until she came out into society was well-regarded as a young actress in our amateur theatricals. I have seen her give a convincing rendition of her chosen part myself. And I cannot think, no matter how these men try to convince me, that she had any seed of insanity in her. She was in every respect, a girl as other girls, if more scrupulous about the forms of religion than some.’

‘Was there an illness that might have affected the brain at any point? As she grew, had she defects of temper? I shall press you a little on this, Lady Laura. We must know the bad with the good in order to tell if there be anything that could be unkindly construed into madness.’

‘No, she was a healthy child, robust and full of spirit. She could be a little self-willed, Mr Holmes, but no more so than any other girl, and if she had a fault it was that she was perhaps over-sensitive to slight or rejection. She was a well behaved child, for all her high spirits, fond of her family, and affectionate.’

‘Very well; we see no evidence of incapacity in youth. Come to the period of the marriage then. Was Durham her first choice? If my memory serves me correctly, he was in a liaison with Lady Lonsdale for a time, and this was well known. You see I will be blunt with you. Durham was older, and of libertine tendencies before this marriage. How came he to be matched to a young and tender girl?’

She sighed and looked away, and Watson, murmuring some sympathetic anodyne, offered her a replenished glass. ‘Was it a love match? Or one of convenience?’

‘We were led to believe it was a love match. There had been rumours that Lord Burghersh had been attracted to her and she to him – she is so beautiful, you know – but it came to nothing: her brother was strongly opposed to a marriage. In any case, she and Durham courted long enough: nothing was done in haste, and both had ample time to retract, but did not choose to. I know he at times expressed some doubt as to her intelligence – and also her love for him, for as the engagement drew on, she became markedly more shy and silent. Her older sister, Mrs Gerard, who had had much to do with furthering Durham’s suit, confessed to me that she had wondered that her sister was so reticent of expressing love for him, but supposed her to be merely very reserved. I enquired if Ethel was truly willing, but I was told that she was. And when I asked her myself, she said she thought that Lord Durham was very handsome, and that she was eager to be married. I thought nothing wrong then.’

‘But she did not appear to receive his attentions with delight, or to court them? She was not caressing in her manner, or fond?’

‘She would have been afraid of appearing too forward. But she might have allowed herself a little more licence and not courted censure. I suppose you could say she was cold, in that she never seemed to wish to be close to him, or familiar in any way. I was much with them in society, so I saw this.’

‘This is not a propitious engagement you are relating to me, my Lady. In general, if a man receives so little encouragement – if there is no eye that looks to his for support or affirmation, no hand pressed tenderly and retained a little when he offers it, no blush of conscious joy that mantles a fair cheek -  he will not ply for hire there, but take his goods to another market. How came he to persist in his attentions? Did he not suspect he was not liked?’

I glanced at Watson, seeking agreement with my line of questioning, for I felt somewhat at sea with these affairs of the heart – they were not murder, after all. He smiled, met my gaze with an expression of perfect understanding, and reached out to clasp my shoulder briefly. ‘Was he stubborn or misguided?’

‘I fear Mrs Gerard was much to blame for that. I know that she told Durham her sister was silent and reserved, and sometimes shunned his company because of the strength of her love for him, which she could not express, and this perhaps strengthened his attraction to her. She was much sought after for her beauty: he thought himself fortunate to have won her hand.’

‘And yet in two years he had her placed in an institution for the insane, and is asking a court to determine that she had not the power of consent because her understanding of the contract of marriage she was entering into was flawed. I do not like what I am hearing. You present me with a young woman who after displaying normal behaviour during her youth enters into an engagement during which she rather shuns than courts the company of her betrothed, repelling advances and disliking speech with him. How came he not to suspect that the marriage was not entirely to her liking?’

‘The Earl referred to my friend as his ‘shy and silent divinity’. I imagine he supposed that after marriage her reticence would diminish and her confidence increase. They were much together, and participated in all the usual society events: no-one thought anything of it if she was reserved, but that she was keeping a proper distance. It is true that after some indications of her disliking to be with him, he asked her sister whether she was truly in love with him, but was reassured.’

‘But not by her?’

‘No, by her family.’

‘The forms of society do little service to young women: it is all ceremony and what is appropriate, rather than what is honest and true,’ observed Watson. ‘I recall our friend Carpenter saying as much, do not you, Holmes? And I suppose after a certain point, having committed himself, Durham could not draw back without dishonour. But she could have done so.’

‘I believe her to have been over-persuaded, Dr Watson. But in any case, the marriage took place. And I had no doubts of her sanity when she contracted it. She participated fully in everything that was planned, she signed the settlements with every evidence of good understanding, she was serious and respectful in her responses in the church, and appeared fully to comprehend the duties and responsibilities of marriage.’

‘And would the majority of those people who saw her before the wedding and who attended it concur with your judgement?’

‘I believe they would Mr Holmes. And I intend to make sure that they do their duty to her by testifying to that on her behalf. I will not have her name blackened in her absence. I am convinced that this derangement – for such I have seen it, and such I must think it when I now converse with her -  came upon her after her marriage, and I fear lest it was some ill treatment that caused it. That is what I wish you to help me determine. I will have justice for her, whether she is able to have her liberty or no. I would do the same for my daughter, although I would hope to God never to see a child of mine in similar case. When I think of what she was, poor child, and what she is now . . .’

Watson handed her his handkerchief, and she touched it to her eyes. For a moment we maintained a respectful silence.

‘Forgive me,’ she murmured, when she was a little recovered. ‘I find the case infinitely distressing. And I fear lest matters will arise that may – that may shame or hurt her, even if she is not there to hear them.’

‘Anything of intimate detail should certainly be heard _in camera_ ,’ I assured her. ‘If you can, Lady Laura, pray tell me of events after the marriage. When was it first suspected that the Countess was falling ill?’

‘I knew nothing of any difficulty until the early spring,’ she replied, twisting the handkerchief in her hands. ‘She wrote to me in the February after her marriage saying that she had been unwell, that there was nothing to worry about, but that she had seen Sir William Gull, and he had prescribed for her, that she suffered some digestive disturbances, and loss of appetite, but that she hoped to be better soon, and looked forward to seeing me when she returned from Cannes, where she was to go for her health.’

‘So that would have been in eighty-three. And was there nothing about her letter then that alarmed you? You thought her sane then?’

‘I thought her writing a little irregular, but she might have dashed the note off in haste. She said nothing of her husband, or of her married life. Some sentences were a little – disjointed – but it was an ordinary letter, no more.’

‘When did you see her next?’

‘It happened that I attended Lady Londesborough’s ball in the April of that year, and I was with her there again upon her return from Cannes. I have never been more shocked in my life to see the change in her. It was as if I met a completely different person to the girl I had known.’

‘Describe the change, if you please.’

‘She was – strange. She would not dance, or converse, but gazed around her wildly. She was either completely silent or laughed at nothing, and could not account for her laughter, but said she did not know why she laughed. And she was frightened – nay, terrified - there was fear in her eye, in her whole demeanour. I found it inexpressibly sad, Mr Holmes. There were members of her own family there – her married sister, Mrs Gerard among them, but she repulsed them when they remonstrated with her, and endeavoured to persuade her to act rationally, seeming to fear and dislike them also. In the end her husband compelled her to rise, and took her home in the carriage. The next I heard, she was off to the continent again, and there she remained until the September. I did not hear from her once during that period, but when I wrote to my Lord Durham on her return, and asked after her, he informed me that she was no longer living with him, but had been placed in a private establishment nearby – the Knoll – and was attended by a trained nurse. He said that she was mad, that he believed she had been mad before the marriage, and that he intended to seek an annulment.’

‘So he believed that he had been practised on, and married to a mad girl, without his knowledge? And did you believe so?’ Watson leaned forward, his eyes intent. ‘Was that your understanding of the case?’

‘No, Dr Watson, it was not. The girl I knew was as sane as you or I until her marriage. Nothing about her – and I knew her for many years – led me to believe that she was in the least deranged. All change I saw came after her marriage, and I believe that to have been the cause of it.’

‘And did you see her at the Knoll?’

‘I did. She seemed at first perfectly quiet. She was living retired, of course, in pleasant rooms, and seemed to be happy so, but she laboured under a sense that she was being punished. She said often that she had ‘done something dreadful’; that she was being punished, that her Mama would be very sorry and shocked to know of what she had done, and I had better not tell her. I replied, I recall, that her Mama loved her, and would certainly not wish to see her so sad, and she repeated that she had done something dreadful, that she had behaved ‘awfully’ and that she would be ‘sent home to Mama if she did not behave herself now.’ And at that point she seemed nothing but a child –  and a terrified, shamed child, not the merry girl I knew.’

‘Did she become distressed at this thought?’

‘Indeed. She was agitated, and began to pace the room, her fingers intertwined, and gripping each other. Then one hand moved to her bosom and she began to disarrange her dress, pulling open the buttons until I gently bade her be still and did them up for her. She repeated again that she had done something dreadful and that Jack would send her home to Mamma and begged me not to tell, that she was sorry, and would not do it again but would suffer anything he wanted. I calmed her as one would a small child, and after a while she became tranquil, and a little more rational. She closed her eyes, and I though that she had perhaps fallen asleep where she sat, but then she looked at me again and began to converse as if she had never been agitated at all. So I remained quiet, as one must, Mr Holmes, though my heart broke for her, poor child, and returned her observations with similar ones of my own. Then when I left she kissed me on the cheek and said, as if from nowhere, ‘Do you know, Aunt Laura, it is a curious thing, but the very things one has longed for most are often the most disappointing when one gets them.’ I saw that her eyes were full of tears, but I could do nothing but embrace her and leave, for it was time for her warm bath. They found the water soothed and relieved her, and I did not wish to deprive her of any solace she might find in that terrible place.’

She wiped her eyes again, and Watson patted her hand. ‘I am sure you were very distressed,’ he said. ‘I am so sorry, Lady Laura. So very sorry. It seems as if your young friend is in a state of great unhappiness, and one must compassionate with her. And you say that the doctors have pronounced her insane? It sounds to me more as if she is miserable and frightened than mad.’

‘Have you seen her since?’ I asked. Again, I exchanged a glance with Watson. He looked grim and sad, and as if I read his mind, I understood that he thought he knew what was the truth of the matter, but he shook his head just slightly, so I forbore to question him. ‘Has there been further deterioration in her behaviour that warrants Lord Durham’s ire?’

Lady Laura nodded, wiping her eyes. ‘While she was at the Knoll, she – she bit and kicked the nurse who attended on her, and became violent at her confinement, and displayed, I am given to understand, a – a lack of – of modesty in her behaviour and – and dress. She was taken from there, and spent a month with her aunt – her real aunt, for she calls me Aunt Laura merely as a courtesy title – while a place was prepared for her in Gloucester. She now resides in Barnford Asylum in Gloucestershire. She has a suite there – is maintained in all comfort. Her bodily health is better; she eats and sleeps, takes exercises and corresponds with her friends. But she is still subject to these fits where she is deluded, believing she is a great criminal, that she has done ‘something dreadful’; this is her repeated cry.’

‘Would you say she loves, or fears her husband?’

‘She seems to have no thought of going back to Lord Durham. I have seen her, when we visited, hold up her cheek for his kiss as if she were a child, show him her needlework or her book, but she seems to have no thought of ever living with him again as a wife. It is as if she is completely a child, and one labouring as quietly as she may under a punishment she believes she has deserved. It is absolute submission. Yes, perhaps it is fear. There is fear in her eye, but she makes no complaint against him, nor ever has done.’

‘Do you think her mad, Lady Laura?’

‘The doctors say she is: surely they should know? I do not know, Mr Holmes. I do not know. But I do know that she was not mad as a child, and I am certain in my own mind that she was capable of consenting to the marriage. Yet if she was capable of consent, then she will remain married to Durham, for there cannot be an annulment. There cannot be a divorce, for one cannot divorce a spouse who is insane. She is tied into a contract that cannot be broken and so is he. He can never marry again; he can never have a legitimate heir. If she was not capable of consent, then she can be freed of a marriage that has clearly become a source of terror – but freed for what? Her family will not want her, and if she must be maintained in an establishment all her days, who will pay the cost? I want her free – but if she is never sane again, what will she do? An asylum is a cruel place to end your days. And she is twenty five. Only twenty five. She could live for fifty years or more.’

There was a silence. I liked this woman, I decided. She was honest, and straightforward, in her reasoning very clear, and a good friend withal.

‘Will you watch over her if she remains in the asylum, Lady Sheffield?

‘I will, Mr Holmes, and my daughter Helen will also. There is twelve years between them, but Ethel was always kind to my little girl, and her affection is reciprocated.’

‘I am glad that you will be her protector. I must tell you that from all the evidence you have given me, if your recount is true and you have left nothing out, that I believe your young friend to have been sane, and to have consented to be married in that state. And that she has become ‘insane’ as the doctors have it, since her marriage, and that certain events in her marriage – events as yet unknown to us - have led her to this. And I believe that if others can speak to her behaviours as a child then a judge will find so also. Do you not concur, Watson? What is your opinion?’

‘I think the case more complex than you, Holmes, but that is because I am a medical man, and you are not. But for your purposes, Lady Sheffield, I do concur. I see nothing in what you have said to lead me to believe that your young friend was insane at the time of her marriage, and everything to conclude that her mind is presently distressed to the point of her being unable to care for herself, although whether it is absolute madness I cannot say without observation. You say she eats and sleeps better ‘now’; I take it that you imply that at one time she did not?’

‘When she returned from Cannes with Lord Durham, she was dreadfully thin. Haggard and gaunt, as if she had not eaten for days. Her sister said she complained of not sleeping. When Lord Durham persuaded her from the ball at which her behaviour so shocked us, she could not be induced to put on a coat against the weather, and he was forced to wrap it round her while she stood passive, and looked nowhere but wrung her hands, and flinched from him, and cried and laughed together.

‘Very well. And she did not, for example, deprive herself of food or sleep, or take inadequate care of herself as a young girl?’

‘Not in the least. She had a healthy appetite, and was fond of sweetmeats. And as I have said to you, she was an active, almost boyish, child.’

‘Then I concur with my friend, Holmes.’

Lady Laura looked at him. ‘You said earlier that you concur ‘for my purposes’ Dr Watson. Is there something that you are not saying to me?’

To my astonishment, he blushed, and looked at the floor. ‘There is, my Lady, but it is not a subject commonly discussed between men and women. I am not your doctor, nor are you my patient, in which case if it were you labouring under some difficulty, I would make bold to question you about matters relating to – to intimacy with regard to yourself, because it would be my duty to do so. But it is both unprofessional and indelicate to speculate about the marital relations that exist between a husband and a wife with whom one has, as a medical man, no professional relationship. I will only ask you again: to what extent do you think your young friend was aware of all the duties and responsibilities of marriage. I refer, I am afraid, to the probable events of the marriage night, and her role in them?’

‘I cannot say,’ she said slowly, her eyes cast down. ‘I – Dr Watson, you ask me a question I cannot answer, and I do not see how it may have a bearing on the subject. Of  course all girls – all women – are made aware of their marital duties, but it is not much discussed before. It is the task of the husband to guide his bride through the  - the w-wedding night.’

It is only that I think it likely, as a medical man,’ he said, stressing the phrase slightly, ‘I think it probable from what you have told me, that the marital relation is the root cause of the problem. To me, from a doctor’s point of view, the evidence points that way. But we must not speculate without data, as I am sure Mr Holmes would say.’

‘I would,’ I said, hastily, aware that I was blushing also. ‘I  - I really think we should not.’

‘I see.’ Lady Laura looked at him sternly, and he met her gaze without flinching, although his colour was still heightened. ‘You think my young friend was not fortunate enough to be kindly dealt with, and the derangement we have seen was subsequent to this.’

‘I am afraid I do,’ he said. ‘I think it quite possible that she was ignorant, and ill-prepared, and thereafter not gently treated. Lady Laura, I think that when this case is heard tomorrow, there will be matters that should only be heard _in camera_ , and that if you have any  - influence -  in this matter, you should go back to the friend who sent you to us, and express any doubts or fears that you have, so that justice may be done for this unfortunate and unhappy girl.’

She wept, then, and dear Watson drew his chair next to her, and spoke soothingly, telling her how she and her daughter could help and care for their young friend, how with time, and love and patience she might come to her senses again, and that she should call upon us if there were ever anything she wished to bring to our attention. ‘Do not hesitate,’ he said, ‘for Holmes here will be happy to do anything he can for you.’

‘I have done very little,’ I said, and so I had, for although he and I had reached, I believed, the same conclusion in our deductions, the more human part of our help had been all his gentleness: he was fitted to comfort and help the other sex in a way I could not.

‘You have both been – most kind,’ she said, and I saw her compose herself with a quiet strength and deliberation. ‘And I am grateful to both of you. I suppose now that I knew. I must have known. I am not ignorant: I suspected that there was something wrong between her and Lord Durham when I saw her look at him at the ball.  But we are taught to mistrust our own feelings and intuitions and trained to seek elsewhere for answers, and so I came to you.’ Her voice wavered a little. ‘I do not suppose you are often asked to pronounce on such trivial matters as a woman’s fears, Mr Holmes.’

‘I think nothing human alien to me,’ I told her. ‘And it is not trivial by any means. But it is not I whom you should thank:  it is Dr Watson who is the more skilled of the two of us when it comes to affairs of the heart.’

‘It is at least a relief to know that there is somewhere one may take a problem and be understood,’ she said. ‘I believe I will speak to my friend Mrs Forrester about you, Sir, if you do not object to dealing with such slight, feminine troubles. Women are ill served when there is villainy: we have nothing to which we may have recourse, and no-one to whom to go and be believed.’

‘What concerns happiness is never slight,’ said Watson. He smiled at her, and I saw that she found his gentle gallantry entirely charming. ‘You are a woman of considerable strength of character, Lady Laura, and I am very sure you are formidable in battle. I do not have any doubt that you will do your best in court. I have every confidence in you.’

*****

‘The judge in Durham’s case has delivered his verdict,’ Watson remarked to me a fortnight later. ‘And has dealt sternly with both Mrs Gerard as instigator of the ill-fated marriage, and with Durham himself, I see. And the husband does not get his annulment.’

‘Indeed.’ I unfolded the paper. ‘Sir James has been severe: _“he regretted to be obliged to state his opinion that Lord Durham did not, on the third night after the marriage, show that tenderness and consideration which the condition of his young bride demanded. His threat to leave her and to tell her mother of what he considered to be her waywardness was calculated in the highest degree to agitate her and disturb her nervous temperament.”_ The man is clearly a brute, whatever he did.’

‘On the third night, she was alarmed that her courses, to which she was not well accustomed, had come on, and she became hysterical - almost certainly because of the painful and distressing events of the two preceding nights.’ Watson told me. ‘Yes, I know you do not like to hear of it, but I am a doctor. And if you are to be a consulting detective, dealing equally with all, I cannot allow you to remain ignorant. I have heard from Lady Sheffield, who spoke to the Countess’s maid, and who is able to write to me what she will not say to you: my profession renders me almost neutral in this respect, and so there is no shame. In an attempt to stop her from crying, Durham plunged the poor child forcibly into a deep bath of cold water, from which she extricated herself and fled, screaming and naked, through a house full of servants to the garden, pursued thence by her protesting maid, and a furious husband who cried out upon her for her extreme and shameful immodesty and threatened that she should be returned home to her mother in disgrace.’

‘My God, Watson, my God, must you tell me such terrible things? Do I need to know this – this most painful and distressing detail? Can there be no decent reticence?’

‘Nihil humanum alienum a me puto,’ he reminded me. ‘Either that is true, Holmes, or it is not. You said it yourself: you think nothing human alien to you, and my dear fellow, you did not so react when I spoke to you of poor Minnie and her troubles, although that may have been your courtesy to me in my distress. And this is a criminal issue: a court case. I am aware you dislike and distrust the female sex, and I see your lack of ease with them – a lack of ease which I deduce comes from having no sister, perhaps a cold, unfeeling mother, and no kindly nurse in your childhood to teach you that they are not so alien to us after all. Yet I do not believe you can be so unfeeling as to dismiss half the human race on these grounds. Indeed, I have seen you kind to many women. You surely must admit, then that a more complete understanding of what bitter, bitter trials a woman may face can only help you in your great work of justice, my dear, my true-hearted Pythias.’

‘You speak truth, but it is nonetheless a horrible story, and I wish very much that I had not heard it. And as for women, I shall leave that sort of thing to you; you have the gift for it. Not a female we meet but is charmed by your gallantry and gentleness, my noble friend. But I cannot believe you have the temerity to deduce my past. You usurp my privilege, Damon: I am offended.’

He leaned over and twitched the paper out of my hand. ‘You strike an outraged attitude very effectively. No, you are not. You are ashamed that I have shocked you and piqued that I have turned your own methods of observation upon you, that is all. I simply see that you are shy with women, and I am sorry for it, and for its cause. And with regard to the case, you are such a pure-minded and innocent fellow that you do not like any talk that you consider gross. But it is no more gross when it is of a woman, than matters pertaining to a man’s desires and needs, Holmes, and if that poor young girl had been better cared for and educated – again, as our friend Carpenter said, we do our women no favours, treating them like delicate plants – perhaps the marital relationship would not have been a horror to her. Although Durham is a villain, and a fiend, and I would knock him down with pleasure for his unkindness and lack of sensitivity if I saw him in the street. I would never treat a woman so, not for anything. I cannot bear to think of what she must have suffered under his hands, the selfish brute.’

‘Always the “parfit gentil knight”,’ I said. ‘You should find a destrier, Watson,  and go about rescuing maidens in distress.’

‘Do not pretend to sneer at me, my dear man, it does not become you, and, moreover, it is not a reflection of your true kindness. I know you spoke to those mysterious friends you have in high places about this case, and that you have sent watchers to the asylum to ensure that all goes well there. Come, you have been sitting in that chair all morning.’ Watson grasped my hands and pulled me to my feet with such vigour that I over-balanced and landed half on his good shoulder, my nose almost buried in his neck.  ‘It is time for us to walk, and then we will finish off the translation of the Aschenbrandt and the Freud, if nothing else offers to divert you.’

‘I am anxious to finish the literature and begin our experiments,’ I said, straightening myself reluctantly. He smelt of his cologne, and salt and wool and John, and I wanted quite desperately to stay resting against him, to inhale his fragrance, classify it and store it in memory. ‘Yes, let us go out then. But I am sorry for the poor girl. So very sorry. I – did not – there is so much women suffer of which we have no understanding. What happened is – horrible in the extreme. Levity aside – and mine was not appropriate here - hers is a tragedy and one without remedy. I wish I could help her, but I fear I cannot.’

‘Nor I.’ He held out my coat for me. ‘But at least if Lady Laura has been helped to support her in her confinement, that is an advantage, and I daresay you will have this Mrs Forrester she mentioned visiting for advice also. You saw how grateful our friend Miss Stoner was over that wretched business with the snake: it would not be a bad thing if it got about that women may come to us for help. Put on your scarf and hat: this March wind is cold.’

‘My very perfect gentle knight,’ I said. But I believe I must have said it affectionately, for the smile he gave me in return was an embrace.

*****

‘How shall we begin?’ Watson asked me. He had opened the little box I had procured, and was gazing at its contents in absolute fascination. ‘How very complete this is: I never saw anything so carefully thought out. Holmes, if this drug is everything it is said to be, I can see this becoming as regular a part of the household equipment as the nursery maid’s box of senna, rhubarb powder and collodion plasters. What is in here?’

‘Well, it is a selection sent to me with their compliments by Messrs Parke, Davis and Company of Detroit. They think to send out these boxes to all who enquire about cocaine, but they are not yet on general sale – will not be until August – so I count myself fortunate to have obtained one. Take up the contents, and see.’

Watson delved into the box with careful fingers, drawing out each piece separately. ‘The syringe is of good quality.’ He frowned. ‘Although I do not like to see one in your possession.’

‘The drug is not like morphine, or so we are told,’ I reminded him. ‘Do not fear for me, Watson, I am very safe with you to guard and guide me. The camel’s hair pencils are for painting the solution onto the nasal or buccal membranes. I like the minim pipette, but I feel there should be two, and so I shall tell Parke Davis when I send them my observations. They offered me a vial to contain the cocaine muriate solution, but I told them I have those.’

‘There will usually be one in the box? Excellent.’ Watson drew out the five little capsules. ‘And each of these contains what – one grain of cocaine muriate in crystalline form?’

‘Indeed. The quantities in the capsule can be increased as desired, and I have taken the precaution of ordering some more, as well as some ready made solutions. The leaflet you see there only gives instructions for making a two per cent and a four per cent solution, but I understand that Dr Freud has experimented successfully with greater concentrations. Then we have a pot of cocaine oleate, at five per cent, for topical application in neuralgia or toothache, these little cocaine cigarettes, which are thought to be excellent in asthmatic afflictions, and the cigars.’

‘I have my doubts about the wisdom of ruining a good cigar with coca.’ Watson took up the cheroot and rolled it thoughtfully between his fingers. ‘Ah, it is the wrapper only that is tobacco: the internal structure is pure coca leaf. We have improved since the days when any leaf that was obtained in this country had already suffered greatly from the ravages of insects during transportation, that much is clear. Freud mentions that early experiments with the leaf found that after transport it had lost most of its effect. And the cigarettes are wrapped in rice paper, I see. Well, I do not suppose that they will ever replace our pipes, my dear fellow, but one must make an effort to try. You mentioned solutions; in what form do they come?’

‘In the four per cent solution, the hydrobromate, the muriate, the salicylate and the citrate. I have ordered all. And I have also ordered comparable solutions from the German company, Merck of Darmstadt. I thought we could test them scientifically against each other.’

‘I believe we should start gently: what does Freud recommend?’

‘He began with a small quantity of one per cent solution by mouth, so shall we do the same? Apparently response can vary, what works on one may be perceived differently by another, and we may need to alter our doses depending on how we react.’

‘Indeed, if you will do the honours of preparing it, my dear fellow: you are the chemist, after all.’ He smiled at me. ‘I am so happy that we have this new drug to experiment with, Holmes. You have not had a bout of your low mood for some months, but I would be very grateful to have something in the pharmacopoeia to alleviate your wretchedness. I hate to see you suffer so, and this may be just the thing for you.’

*****

I had just finished reading Mycroft’s letter when Watson arrived home, bounding up the stairs and calling for me.

‘ . . .tickets for the new show at the Savoy, my dear fellow: will you come with me? It is called the Mikado: the papers are raving about it. I know it is not serious music – not as you understand music - but do come with me, old fellow. I should be so glad of your company, and we have not been out to anything for weeks.’

‘If you wish,’ I put the letter down. ‘What time is it?’

‘After six, my dear chap: have you been sitting there musing all afternoon? I thought you were going to visit Lestrade at the Yard, or did you forget?’

‘I sent a messenger instead: I have been engaged in following up my case in Amsterdam, which I fear may not be as complete as  I had thought.’

‘The diamonds? What, have they come up again?’ He sat down on the floor at my feet. ‘Tell me more: we have time before we go out.’

‘There is nothing much to tell, only that I set in motion some enquiries into this Henry Judson Raymond, and I have been given rather more information than I bargained for. It appears that he may be rather more than a diamond broker with a flat in Piccadilly, a mansion on Clapham Common, and four hundred acres of rough shooting and a hunting box in the New Forest.’

‘What?’ Watson put his hand on my knee. ‘I thought he was some low criminal, some ordinary blackguard of the city, not a man of substance.’

‘Watson, the Prince of Wales himself has been seen in his company!’

‘That does not preclude him being an arrant knave.’ His tone was tart, and I smiled at it: there was sometimes a spice of the republican about Watson, especially when he considered the excesses of the heir to the throne. ‘Or a criminal, for all that.’

‘No, but it might mean that the man I saw was not Raymond. I must investigate further, I think. To see if I am mistaken. It is possible that I have erred, and that My – my informant is incorrect when he says that this man is not what he seems. In any case, I shall put it aside now, and come with you, but I must change first. Do you wish to sup at Romano’s afterwards? I took two of our little cocaine cigarettes after luncheon: they have effectively killed my appetite, and I shall not eat again today. But I will sit with you while you eat, if you wish. And I shall swallow a small dose now, to ward off fatigue.’

‘Oh, if you do not mean to eat, I will not press you to it,’ he replied, but I thought he regarded me a little anxiously. ‘I shall ask Mrs Hudson for a sandwich then, before we go out.’

‘Perhaps if you also take a little, we might go for a ramble after the show. If you recall, Aschenbrandt said that the muriate had an extraordinary power of staving off fatigue, which we have not yet tested. The moon is full too: I love to walk in a moonlit night.’

‘In dress shoes!’ he protested. ‘No, I thank you, I do not wish to be crippled. Are you restless tonight, Holmes? I can send the tickets to the box office for resale if you would prefer not to go. And then we can walk from here, suitably clad. Would that suit you better?’

‘Not restless as such,’ I said. ‘I simply need, I think, to be active, rather than the passive receiver of another’s actions. To tell you the truth, I do not think I could settle to music if I tried. I am sorry, Watson. I assented without thinking, and am now finding myself repent. I regret my capriciousness, my dear chap. Would you perhaps like to go with another companion?’

‘I would not dream of it, my dear fellow. It is no pleasure to me to go if you are not there to laugh at the show and criticise the music with me. We can see it another time when you are more disposed: I do not think it will close soon. But now I think of it, Lestrade is not working this evening. How would it be if we sent him and his wife instead? We might send Janey round to mind the children, and she could enjoy a comfortable coze with her brother. Yes, I shall do that, Holmes, and we shall walk. Let me call Mrs Hudson.’

He rose to his feet and pulled the bell, smiling down at me, and I wondered that he should be so good. ‘Are you sure?’ I asked him, suddenly guilt-stricken. ‘You paid for the tickets, did you not? Let me share the cost, at least, or reimburse you the whole.’

‘No need, they were a gift from a grateful patient. They were freely given, and so it is fitting they should be freely given away. Holmes, my dear man, I would infinitely sooner have your company, wherever it be. And a walk under the moon sounds delightful: I used to walk often by moonlight in the army, or to lie out, when I could, and contemplate the stars. So big and bright as they were in the still air, and that sky so velvet-black: it was a magnificent show. I would I could show you what like it was here, to feel so small, so insignificant under that immense sky, and yet to be able to name them in their myriads.’ He sighed. ‘Ah, Mrs Hudson, would it inconvenience you to send Janey to the Lestrades this evening? I have tickets for the new show at the Savoy, and wish to give them a treat. I thought Janey might sit with her brother there, and mind the children while they attend the operetta. And Mr Holmes and I are walking tonight, so perhaps just a sandwich or two for dinner?’

‘Mr Holmes has not eaten since breakfast, and he sent that away nearly untouched after you had gone. You’ll be having a meal, gentlemen, if you are off wandering, and no quibbling about it. I’ll send Janey with Billy: it’s late for her to walk alone. And she had better sleep with Lestrade’s eldest girl, and return in the morning. What a worrisome pair you are to be sure!’ But she smiled as she said it, and I did not think she was cross.

While Watson made his arrangements, and our meal was served, I slipped into my bedroom and prepared our two doses. I had pointed out to Watson that the drug should not be kept in our drawing room: I did not think either Janey or Billy would be tempted to try it, for they were honest as the day, but while we were still experimenting with how best to use it, I did not want there to be any untoward incidents. After some thought, I made the solution stronger than usual, for we had discussed testing ourselves as Aschenbrandt had, on soldiers who were over-strained, and then analysing the extent to which the differing doses alleviated fatigue. I explained this to Watson before we took it, which we did after eating. (Curiously, as I remarked to Watson, although I had rather an aversion to food than an appetite, I did not find it inconvenient to eat: it was merely unnecessary, and the food had little savour. Freud had mentioned that the drug produced a slight, cooling eructation after food, and this I certainly found.)

Within minutes after the doubled dose I felt that now familiar sense of strength and vigour imparted to my limbs: I experienced a sensation of renewed mental acuity as if I could have worked for hours, and of physical energy that drove me to the door, eager for our outing. Watson reported the same: upon taking his pulse he found it perceptibly higher than its normal rate, the heart bounding rapidly along. My pulse was also slightly elevated, he told me, and my hand hotter than its wont. My usual pallor did not change: he quickly acquired a fine rosy blush, which also went with an elevated skin temperature. The moonlight cooled our skins a little as soon as we were out of doors, but we were not uncomfortably cold despite the March breeze: the drug providing an inner warmth as it did to the original Inca in their high plains. By common, silent consent, we struck away from the more frequented streets and skirted Regent’s Park towards the privacy of Primrose Hill.

It was already dark by the time we got to the hill, and the moon rode high, chequering the ground with black and silver. My senses under the drug seemed preternaturally acute: the cry of an owl, the bark of a distant fox, fell upon my ear with an uncanny distinctness. Each moon-shadow was edged in a burning line, a tremulous fret of silver wire that vibrated like a violin string in my altered sight. The wool of Watson’s coat sleeve under my hand felt harsh, disagreeably so, and without thinking, I slid my hand down to his bare wrist, encircling it with my fingers. He stilled, and then his hand, smaller and finer boned than mine, drew from my loose grasp and clasped my hand in his, holding it strongly. I imagined the very fibres of his being melding with mine, growing together until we were indissolubly one, a conjoined creature, drifting on the wind. I moved my fingers over his hand, learning the shape of his bones and tendons. He sighed and leaned into me, and so linked, hand in hand like children, we wandered on in a silence more intimate than speech. After a while, I became aware of where he was leading me.

‘There are primroses under this beech tree,’ I whispered. There was no need to whisper: there were none to remark us, but the night demanded it. If I had been a spiritual creature I would have said it was a holy night, numinous in its beauty and strangeness ‘We came here before, and you explained the make of primroses to me. I never did take those from your lancet case, did I?’

‘I have them still,’ he said. Another, lesser, man might have sounded shamefaced, but he was matter of fact, even fond. ‘I pressed them and kept them. It is sentimental of me, no doubt, but I love to look on them.’

‘I still have those you gave me,’ I confessed. ‘In my pocket book. I do not in the least know why I kept them, but I look at them still.’

‘They have a meaning you know,’ he told me. His hand gripped mine hard.

‘Young love,’ I assented. ‘But we are neither of us very young or – or in l-love, s-so that cannot apply to us . . . of – of course . . .’

He was silent for a moment, eyes downcast, then said, low, ‘There is yet another meaning.’ He moved to face me, placing his free hand on my shoulder. ‘It is ‘I cannot live without you,’ Sherlock.’

I could not lie to him, no matter what the cost. ‘I cannot live without you, John.’

‘No, nor would I wish to without you. I have never – cared - for a man as I care for you, my dear. You are my all: this friendship sweeter, closer, more cherished than ever brother or friend.’ His tone was soft and rueful, and his eyes met mine with an affection that pierced me to the core. He raised a hand as if to touch my cheek – my eyes, closed, involuntarily, to accept the desired caress -  shivered suddenly, and then leaned forward, his head bowed to my shoulder. ‘Oh my God.’

I put my arms round him in a tentative embrace, my heart beating wildly with hope, but he moaned, and put his free hand to his head, and I realised all at once that it was not a caress he was seeking but support. His skin flushed up feverishly hot against mine, and when my fingers found his pulse, it was galloping almost faster than I could count the beats.

‘My head,’ he said faintly, and shivered again. ‘Sherlock, my head. Help me sit down, I cannot stand.’

I manoeuvred us both to the ground, supporting my back against the beech tree, and Watson against my chest, his head on my shoulder. His pulse showed no diminution in speed, and when the shifting shadows allowed me to see his face, his mouth was tight with pain, the lower lip gripped bloody beneath his teeth. There was sweat on his brow and neck, and I wiped it away with my handkerchief. Long rigors shook him; his skin burned.

‘What is it,’ I asked him, trying to remain calm. I had never seen him like this.

He breathed hard, licked his lips. ‘I don’t know. Pain in my head. I – I can feel – like a pressure, pounding. My chest -  I can’t. Just  - don’t let go.’

‘I won’t. I was terrified. ‘John, John, if this is – is this the drug? I will never forgive myself if it is. Tell me it is not the drug.’ I felt his pulse. ‘It cannot be, surely it must not be so. Your pulse is dropping, see, it is a mere temporary affliction, you will be well in a trice.’

He shook his head and then cried out with pain again. ‘No, it is the drug. Wait, I can’t speak.’

I held him for what seemed an endless time in desperate silence, while his pulse under my fingers told the battle of his heart, now full and bounding, now slow, irregular, uncertain. At times, to my horror, I felt a skip, a stutter, as if it missed a beat. His fever grew until he shook with it, then waned, leaving him pallid and grey. At length his heart settled, the wild beating slowed to a normal pace, and did not recommence and the sweat rolled copiously from his brow. When he opened his eyes, and the pale light fell on them, I saw that the pupils were huge, black and staring as if he had taken belladonna, hardly a ring of blue iris visible around them. And I could do nothing but hold him: there was no help for it. He could not be moved, I could not leave him, there was no aid to be had where we were: we must, perforce, wait out the outcome. But I vowed that he should have no more of the drug, if it were indeed the cocaine that had made him suffer so, for it appeared that though it might be panacea to many, it was poison to him.

At length he sighed and heaved a deeper breath, and moved to draw away from his reclining posture against me, but I tightened my grasp around him, and pressed him to my breast. He relaxed, his body lying loose and easy against me, and I laid my cheek softly against his hair. ‘Don’t go.’

He gave a weak laugh. ‘I cannot even if I would, my dear Sherlock. I doubt if I can even stand for a while yet. I thought - ’

‘I thought you were going to die.’ My eyes were wet, but I could not loose him to wipe them. ‘John, what was it? We took the same amount of the drug.’

‘I too thought I was going to die.’ He swallowed, and breathed hard. ‘My God, I thought my head would burst, and my heart with it. There were sparks behind my eyes, and the most dreadful ringing in my ears, high and far off. What fools we have been: it could have been you, and I helpless to save you.’

‘But it was you, and I was the one who gave you the drug. Why did it not affect me? Better if I died than you.’

‘We have already said that we cannot live one without the other. Hush.’ He paused, clearly gathering his strength, before he went on. ‘It happens sometimes that one person will have a pronounced idiosyncrasy – an intolerance – for a drug, and a dose that another may take is death to him.’ Another pause, longer, while he recovered. ‘Clearly, my system does not tolerate cocaine in anything but the minutest dose, and yours does.’

‘You must never have it again, John. Forgive me. This is my fault.’

But he was lying back against me again, and his eyes were closed. I was damnably uncomfortable, cold and stiff, sitting on wet earth, with the sharp wind nipping my ears, but I could have remained so for ever for the pleasure of holding him, despite the sorry circumstances. After a further rest, however, he stirred, and sat up slowly, wincing.

‘I could drink a river, and we have not a drop of water,’ he said, and coughed. ‘Holmes, we cannot stay all night like this. My head still hurts, but it is not as sharp as it was. Help me to rise, and give me your arm: we must make shift to stumble home again or we will both be dead of inflammation of the lungs by morning, cocaine’s vaunted powers of giving endurance notwithstanding.’

It was all he could do to walk, with my arm around his waist, and his around mine. We made but slow progress, and more than once had to sit and rest. Eventually we came into lighted streets, each glass globe wearing a quivering halo of mist. The night had turned, and the city was quiet in that dead hour before dawn.

‘I do not know if I can go any further,’ he said suddenly. He was white-lipped and sweating. ‘Holmes, can you find a cab – anything – oh God,’ and he bent over and vomited.

‘I dare not leave you, Watson. In this state you are easy prey: you might be robbed or worse.’ I handed him my handkerchief, steeling myself. ‘What, man, dismayed, and you a soldier? Do you give in so easily? Take courage and brace yourself. It is not far now, and in any case there is not a cab to be had at this hour, and none of our boys around to summon one.’

‘Brute.’ He coughed and wiped his mouth, straightened himself, shoulders braced. ‘Give me a moment.’

‘As many as you need, so only that you go on. Watson, think, it will be dawn soon. We cannot be seen in this state in the streets in daylight.’

‘You are right. Give me your arm, Holmes. No, do not embrace me. Your arm only, then I can at least pass for an accidental inebriate, rather than a complete debauchee. My head – oh, my head. Let us go.’

*****

Watson was ill for some time after the events of that night. We had arrived home just before dawn and I was about to half drag, half carry him up the stairs, when Mrs Hudson appeared with a candle. I believe she wished to remonstrate with both of us: she did not appear to have been to bed but had waited for our return, for she was fully clad. She checked herself, however when she saw the state Watson was in, and flew to heat water and prepare coffee, muttering something about it being a good thing that the rest of the household was absent. I begged for warm milk for Watson, for I felt any further stimulant would be most unwise, and made him drink it. I manhandled him into the bath and out of it, and saw him into his nightshirt and robe, but he was, by then, at the very extremity of exhaustion and did not even argue when I made him lie down in my own bed, so that he might not have to climb the stairs. After a while, I had the relief of seeing him drop into a natural sleep, his pulse returning to its regular beat, and his colour more normal. I remained with him while he slept through the day, explaining to Mrs Hudson that we had been walking and he had suddenly been taken ill. She scolded me about our irregular habits and tiresome ways for quite some time, but she hung over Watson like a fond mother while he was recovering over those few days, and cooked every delicacy she could to tempt him.

It was as well she was attentive, for after I had seen him improving, I could barely stand to be in his presence, so great was my guilt and shame. I knew him to be less accustomed to drugs than I – my constitution had withstood them for a good many years, after all, and I saw no reason why it should not continue to do so – but he had struggled with morphinism as a soldier, and it took less of the substance to have an effect on him. And yet, I had encouraged him to experiment, myself had mixed the dose that could have killed him – doubling it – doubling it on the strength of a few published papers and an assurance that it would do no harm. I could not fail to accuse myself of the most shocking and wicked negligence. As a scientist, I should have known better than not to test a colleague’s hypothesis – as a friend, I should have tendered him more highly than myself, and never increased his dose in so careless a fashion.

So while he stayed in my bed, I remained within call in the drawing room, and when he moved to the drawing room sofa, I made sure to be busy elsewhere. (I was uncovering more about Mr Henry Judson Raymond - or rather, according to the Pinkerton’s detective with whom Mycroft had placed me in contact, Mr Adam Worth, unconfessed and uncaught bank robber and thief -  with every step of my researches, every day. It seemed to me that he sat like a spider at the centre of some web: his touches were everywhere I looked, once I became aware of his peculiar modus operandi.)

I should have known better than to think that Watson would not notice my absences, however. Whatever he lacked as a detective – although he was more observant than many, to give him his due – I could not deceive him in some respects. I arrived home one evening about a week after our evil night to find him dressed, very much the soldier, and sitting at his desk, rather than reclining on the sofa in robe and slippers. I was about to make a hasty excuse, and retreat to my own room, when he raised his head from the letter he was writing and commanded me to remain. I uttered some excuse, feeling unaccountably flustered, but somehow, before I knew where I was, I was sitting in my chair by the fire, and he across from me.

I said nothing. I have never felt more like a boy before a schoolmaster. It reminded me forcibly, in fact, of that first time I had woken him from nightmare with an incautious touch, and he had commanded my attention in much the same way as he did now.

The silence dragged on between us. When I could bear it no longer I looked cautiously up – the carpet had seemed singularly worthy of study up to that point – and found his eyes on me with such a loving, gentle expression, that my own eyes became suddenly wet, a fact I hardly realised until he leaned forward and wiped an errant drop from my cheek.

‘I have quite forgiven you, you know,’ he said, his voice soft. ‘It was an error, and a grave error, but the error was mine also. I am a doctor, I know my own constitution: if you were carried away, I had a duty to be more cautious. You are not the only, or even the main, party who is responsible for what happened. Will you forgive yourself, now, and be my friend again?’

‘What manner of friend puts the man whom – his dearest – his only true friend in such danger?’ I said. ‘It was inexcusably careless of me, John. You could have died. I cannot forgive myself. I should not.’

‘But I am alive and well, and not much the worse for it,’ he said. He took my hand. ‘And if we have had rather a bitter lesson in the dangers of such things, why, that is all to the good. I was for example, considering the use of cocaine in some of my patients: I have now proved, in the best tradition of scientific experiment, that it is possible to have an dangerously idiosyncratic reaction to the drug, and I have done so at the trifling cost of a few days pain, and at no risk to anyone under my care. If Freud did not find it so, nor Koller, nor Aschenbrandt, why then they did not: perhaps no such case as mine came within their purview. I am writing to Dr Freud to detail my own experiences, so that they may now be incorporated into the body of knowledge about the drug, which is a good thing, is it not?’

I muttered, I believe, some negative comment, and he stroked my hand gently. ‘Come, Sherlock, forgive yourself, I beg you. I cannot bear it when you keep yourself removed from me in this way. It is worse than having you absent in Amsterdam to see you flinch when I address you, to have you hurry away and make excuses rather than be with me. I know you are ashamed of your mistake, but I say again, it was our mistake: we are both responsible. Or have you perhaps decided that you no longer wish for the company of a man who vomits wantonly on your shoes, and has to be dragged home like any wretched, puking drunkard?’

I looked up then, indeed, full of furiously indignant refutations of his unwarrantable levity - that he should make light of what was after all, an exceptionally serious matter! -  to find him regarding me with a face so soft, so merry, so purely loving, that my heart broke within me. I believe I tumbled to my knees at his feet, but before long he had cut short my stammered apologies, pulled me up, and we were sitting together on the sofa, while he told me I was his very foolish dear fellow, and I was not to reproach myself any further for it was as much a punishment to him to be without my company as it was to be ill, ‘so let us be kind to each other once more, Sherlock, and say that we have learned our lesson. I cannot do without you, you know, not in the least, so you must not withdraw yourself.’

I wondered as we sat on the sofa that night reading our Dumas (I had fallen into the habit of saving the book for those times when I needed to be close to him, and so, I realised now, had he) whether he understood fully how very much I could not do without him, if he knew at all how dearly I loved him, and the nature of that love. His deep and abiding affection, his strong regard and esteem, these I knew I possessed. He was tender with me, caressing in his ways, and gentle, but what would he say if I hinted – if I asked for those touches to be more – directed, more sensual. What would he do if I, in whose severe chastity he most firmly believed, of whose pure devotion to reason he had never a doubt, begged him for a more carnal caress? I closed my eyes, remembering his face in the moonlight, the open warmth of his gaze as we admitted to each other our deepest, most secret affections.

Men could be fond, I thought; men could cherish the closest of bonds. I knew that in Mycroft’s little coterie as well as elsewhere, there existed men for whom the deepest loves they had were with others of their sex, whether those be expressed in carnal form or no. Nourished at Eton and Harrow, sprung from the feverish friendships flowering in those hotbeds of Greek learning, those loves, for some, would always be stronger than the love of women. They were Greek loves, intense, romantic attachments that transcended the carnal love between man and woman. They were as different in their quality to the hurried couplings of Jack Saul and his like – but there I made myself pause. That Saul sold his favours for money did not mean he was incapable of the finer emotions, only that the circumstances, and means of his life forbade their indulgence. He had, he told me, truly believed himself ‘in love’ with Kirwan. And yet to give these loves physical expression was not only forbidden, but considered the worst of all forbidden sins.

I must have sighed, for he closed the book and laid it down.

‘Are you fretting yet, my dear friend?’

‘I cannot make light of it as you can. You did not sit for hours with your friend in your arms wondering if every breath, if every beat of his heart was to be his last. You did not feel him burn with fever.’

‘I did not.’ There was a long pause, and then he said, very softly, ‘No, I did not. Not there. Not then. But I have done so, in the army, although for no-one so dear to me as you. I have had men die in my arms, and I helpless to save them, so I do know. I have held you so – after the bombing in the Underground, during that time before you came back to yourself. I have sat by you, holding your hand, while you lay on the sofa in the depths of melancholia, seeming to wish only for death. That pain is – too familiar to me.’

‘I could do nothing to help you.’ In my agitation, I did not notice that I had gripped his sleeve until he placed his hand over mine. ‘I thought that you were dying, and I could not save you.’

‘It is the worst of all terrors, Holmes. I know. I understand.’

‘How did you – in the army, how did you not go mad with it?’

‘Well, I am of different temperament to you, my dear. And in the army I was not so deeply involved: I cared for my men, yes, but there was none I held dearer than a brother, so my pain was professional. It struck at my sense of duty, my pride, my loyalty – but not deep into my heart.  When it was you in danger, then, then it struck deep. Sometimes I feel it yet, when I look at you. As far as the other night is concerned -  I – I should not say this, perhaps, but through all those hours, while I was conscious of very little beside my pain, I knew that your arms held me. I was glad of your strength, bearing me up, sustaining me. I might not have lived, had you not been there. You saved me.’

‘I was the cause of your pain! I could have been your death!’

‘Unwittingly. Innocently. Your presence was my pain’s best remedy and my strongest tie to life. Come, let us have no more of this. I will have you forgive yourself, and take heart again. The spring and summer open before us, and we have much to plan and think for. You have your dubious diamond merchant to investigate, and I have campaigning before me.’

‘Not politics again!’ I must have sounded petulant, for he laughed and mimicked me when he replied.

‘Yes, politics again. There is a group of us engaged in trying to bring about a change to the laws regarding the age at which a young person may give consent to intercourse, and our fight is a hard one. There is considerable resistance to increasing it: doubtless because there are too many old roués in the Commons and Lords who secretly engage in prostitution. I have a meeting with Mrs Butler next week; my opinion is sought because of my work in the free wards at Barts.’

‘Must it always be to do with sexual relations with you? One would think there was nothing else of importance in the world!’

‘But it is the engine that drives humanity,’ he pointed out. ‘How many cases have we had that have turned on it? I agree that as a motivating force for crime it is maddening in its lack of intellectual stimulus for one of your cerebral genius, but for us lesser mortals it is an important part of our lives.’

‘You do not seem to find it so,’ I snapped back, and repented of my heat the moment after.

‘I am not interested in it where there is no love, my friend, and so I am resolved to wait for my _coup de foudre_.’

‘And what if the thunderbolt never strikes?’

‘I have your kind companionship, my dear Holmes, the affection of a more than brother, the loyalty of a comrade in arms, the delight of your intellect, and the charm of your eccentricities, which rather add to than detract from the whole. Moreover, you have taught me to speak French, frequently take me out to dinner, and regale me with the most beautiful music. What more could I desire?’

‘Now you are laughing at me!’

He placed his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into a gentle embrace. ‘I am, my dear, yes. I am laughing because despite that dangerous night, I am still alive, and you have not killed yourself in one of your wretched experiments yet, and the world stretches before us full of adventures upon which we may embark together: the best of companions, together.’

I could not resist his humour, not when he smiled at me like that, My irritation melted away, and I found myself smiling in return, a weight lifting off my heart.

‘That is better,’ he said, softly, the most beautiful light in his eyes. ‘Now you are my Holmes again, and there will be no more of this bitter self-recrimination. Sit here, closer to me, and correct my French. We were with the Count and Haydée in her enchanted boudoir of rose, were we not?’

‘We were. Begin there, John. Just there, where the Comte says to her ‘ _car si tu m’aimes comme ton père, moi, je t’aime comme mon enfant . . .’_

‘That is to say ‘if you love me like your father, I love you like my child,’ is it not? Shall I go on now?’

‘Yes, I want to hear you read it. Go to the end of Haydée’s sentence: continue!’

_‘Tu te trompes, seigneur, je n’aimais point mon père comme je t’aime; mon amour pour toi est un autre amour: mon père est mort, et je ne suis pas morte, tandis que toi, si tu mourrais, je mourrais.’_

‘Your accent is infinitely better, now translate: you are mistaken, my Lord . . .’

‘ “You are mistaken, my Lord. I did not at all love my father as I love you,” - is that correct?’

‘It is impeccable, Watson. I will finish it: tell me if I have translated correctly. “my love for you is another love: my father died, and I did not die; as for you, if you were to die, I would die.” So hers was a primrose love also, it would seem.’

‘She loves the Count not as a father then, but as a spouse? But he sees her only as a precious charge: alas, that he should be so blind! Will she ever be requited, or will her affections wither unreturned? You have read the book, Holmes, tell me if she will have her heart’s desire, poor beautiful Haydée.’

‘I cannot tell you the ending. No, I will not tell you the ending. You must possess your soul in patience and hope, as must all forlorn lovers.’

‘I hope he will love her in return,’ he murmured, his eyes sad. ‘I do hope he will love her as she wishes, Sherlock.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I hope he will too, John.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes for Part 10
> 
> Forgive me for the two month delay. I wasn’t uncommitted: I was unable (emotionally: I think my mother’s death caught up with me a bit)!
> 
> Holmes’ meeting with Moran will begin to explain some of the background to his, and Moriarty’s control over the criminal world. Details of Holmes’ journey are taken from the book written by George Nathanial Curzon, later Viceroy of India, about his travels in Persia. I was absolutely amazed to find how good the telegraphic communications were: the fact that each of these tiny way stations had access to a telegraph, underlines the political importance of Persia to the British Empire.
> 
> The Dublin Castle Scandal was over by the time we enter this chapter: its ramifications were not. They would reverberate politically for some years.
> 
> Sherlock’s conversation with Mycroft tells you one very important fact about their parents. It’s a small word that’s the crucial one.
> 
> John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee, or ‘the man they could not hang’ was pardoned by the Home Secretary after the drop failed three times. Babbacombe, where he murdered his employer, Emma Keyse, was a tiny, close-mouthed Devonshire community, which was convinced that it knew the real murderer. Holmes refers to DNA testing of course . . .imagine how he’d have liked that.
> 
> The Earl of Durham’s Nullity case against his wife, Ethel Milner, is exactly as reported. Lady Sheffield was one of the main witnesses for the defence. It took weeks to research everything, including contacting a couple of County Archivists. The judge’s summing up made it clear where his sympathies lay. Ethel Milner remained in custody until just before she died in 1931, aged 71. Her ‘crime’ was not just her refusing a marital relationship, but not talking to the doctors in a suitably emollient and submissive fashion: she persistently stonewalled their questions, and they became spiteful. I referenced this case, because there had to be a start point and a reason for so many women coming to Holmes and Watson for help.
> 
> To reference the cocaine issues and use, all of which are authentic, I have read ‘The Cocaine Papers, which details all the early research into cocaine use, including Freud’s paper, Koller’s and Aschenbrandt’s. Everything is accurate, including Watson’s idiosyncratic reaction. People have been known to die after one dose of cocaine.
> 
> I hope this is not too bad, dear readers. For some reason, writing this was a Sisyphean task, and I spent most of my time at the bottom of the hill under the rock.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holmes and Watson discuss people being blackmailed and committing suicide, impersonally, with very few details. This is a 'let's be on the safe side' warning. (Hug) to anyone who is feeling down. Please look for help: the world would be a sadder place without you.

**Since First I Saw Your Face Part 11**

 

**From Shapur to Shiraz, early May 1893.**

**Ozymandias, thinks Holmes as he enters the cavern, although he knows that Shelley wrote the poem about Ramses, and not about these ruins in Shapur. The arch is huge, the cave itself black and forbidding, and inside it, at a little distance, is the pedestal on which the statue of Shapur the king once stood. It is at least five feet high: as he approaches, he is almost at eye level with the sandalled feet – feet a yard long – and the stumps of the legs, one broken off at knee level, one higher, and the broken legs themselves in pieces. The huge torso and head have fallen to the left, breaking the right arm, although its hand still rests on a sword belt. The left arm ends in a stump below the elbow. The dead king’s face is partially buried: what remains is no ‘sneer of cold command’ but, upon the mutilated features, an expression almost of resignation.**

**Holmes dismisses the muleteers, bidding them wait for him outside. When they are gone, he falls to his knees, one outstretched hand resting on the broken image. The pedestal bears no inscription: if any were there, it has been effaced by the chisel of the iconoclast and the hand of time, but the message – here, as in the land of Ramses – is clear: ‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.’ No empire lasts for ever, neither do the things of man endure. ‘Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, ‘all is vanity,’ and thus ever.**

**For all his striving, Holmes has gained nothing. His country, his empire will come to dust as has this vanquished king’s. His service to his country - all such service – is nothing, futile acts, hollow, worthless, ephemeral. He himself is nothing, only a burning desire, an arrowed thought, a winged, impatient yearning. He wants nothing but to be where John lies gravely ill, alone and far away with no kind hand to smooth his brow, no voice to whisper hope and comfort in his ear.**

**_“Through all those hours,”_ ** **Holmes remembers him saying – it seems so many years ago now, those hours when he wondered if John would die – _“while I was conscious of very little beside my pain, I knew that your arms held me. I was glad of your strength, bearing me up, sustaining me. I might not have lived, had you not been there.”_**

**Deep melancholy overwhelms him; it is as if he falls into the abyss, mind adrift and eyes darkened. The chill air in the cave quivers; some electrical impulse -  sharp, strange, startling -  thrills through it. Wind stirs: he hears a known, well-loved, remembered voice, the voice of John Watson, speaking in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently:**

**_Sherlock! Sherlock! Sherlock!_ **

**‘John,’ he gasps, leaping to his feet. ‘John, I am coming, wait for me. I will come to you: only wait for me. Where are you?’**

**There is no reply.**

**‘Where are you?’ he repeats.**

**The air dulls around him, small and close, pressing him down. With a low, mourning cry, he stumbles back to the king’s pedestal, falls before it, as if imploring the mute ruin to answer him.**

**‘John,’ he whispers, ‘John, speak to me. Forgive me. I will come to you.’**

**But although he waits on his knees before the broken king, his heart sick with apprehension and desperate with hope, there is no reply.**

*********

**Beautiful though the ruins of Shapur are, their beauty is lost on Holmes, who remains, during the rest of the day’s journey to Kazerun, in a state of exhausted misery. The tablets and bas-reliefs depicting the god Ormuzd, king Narses, and Shapur himself are a grand spectacle, despite being in some places grooved and worn by the flow of water. Another Holmes – a younger, more carefree Holmes - would have deduced their history from the characters depicted, but then a younger Holmes would have had Watson by his side. A younger Watson might have found stories to write in the engraved portrayal of Shapur’s victory over the Roman emperor, seeing in the prostrate figure trampled under the conqueror’s hooves the antithesis of Victoria’s empire: then, fifteen hundred years ago, the splendid East subduing the enervated and decadent West, as now the resurgent West seeks dominion over the corrupt and luxurious East. A younger Holmes and Watson might have laughed together, walked in intimate discourse among the ruins, scrambled up and down the steep paths and over the rocks, Holmes offering a hand to Watson, Watson smiling down at Holmes as he helps him in turn.**

**A younger Holmes and Watson . . . the older, more weary Holmes, pausing to draw painful breath after ascending the Teng-I-Chakan gorge beside a snow-cold, tumbling river, looks back on the ruins of Shapur. The reliefs on the walls of the stony amphitheatre in which it sits are no longer plainly visible, but the air of brooding majesty remains. And John’s voice – he heard John’s voice cry out for him there, clear and compelling, as if he were merely in the next room. The place will be sacred to him hereafter.**

**Before he turns his back to continue on his way to Kazerun, he registers a silent vow that if ever he returns, if ever John loves him, if ever they can say to each other what is in their hearts, he will return to this place, retrace his footsteps in joy with a beloved companion, and in Shiraz, that city of love and roses, find the freedom to be together far from the English law that would condemn them. If he can. If.**

**Kazerun is at least, when he finally reaches it, warm, with a poppy and tobacco scented breeze. He cannot bear to rest the night in the telegraph office, but bribes Dariush and Hamid to guard his repose in the Bagh-I-Nazar, Timur Mirza’s perfumed garden, where couched on a makeshift divan of striped blankets, he sleeps more soundly than he has done for weeks. The other muleteers he does not trust, but these two boys regard him with some affection for he is kinder to them than their masters are. It is clear from Dariush’s longing glances when he thinks he is unobserved and the soft smiles he offers, that he would give more if Holmes would take it, but setting aside that Holmes has never had a fondness for paederasty and Dariush is only seventeen, his heart is wedded to one man only.**

**In the morning he is disappointed of a message: the telegraph has failed him and his anxiety on John’s behalf remains unrelieved. Before he girds his loins, both physically and metaphorically, for the 3,700 feet of ascent to Mian Khotal, he buys Dariush and Hamid oranges, dates and tobacco, and equips them both with the stout cotton and leather shoes made in the village. They are openly amused: to be shod with the same footwear that is bought for the British army seems ludicrous to these wild lads. Holmes cannot be happy, but his heart is lightened by their laughter, and he begins his day with the small satisfaction of doing good.**

**_My dear John_ **

**_Do you remember the bee? When we were in the cottage, that time, the first time I knew truly how very kind you could be, and how, when I was sad, you understood, and cared for me as no-one had before? I have not forgotten. Sometimes I dream of a time and a place where we can be together always, caring for each other._ **

**_Today I saw bees. I ate honey, and thought of you, and licking the sweetness from my fingers, I remembered the golden drop that once rested on your lip. If I were allowed to love you, if we consented together, if we shared in love, I would taste lip and honey together, your mouth sweeter than the honey is gold. There were bees here, John, in a valley on the way to Mian Khotal, kept by gentle nomads, the Mammasenni, who live in black goat-hair tents; their bees hived in long, baked-clay cylinders like drainpipes, and roofed over with thorns. Unveiled and straight-backed women brought us new milk and honeycomb at noontide. Honey dripped from the waxen cells as we ate, and bees flocked to the spilled drops, remaking them into new gold._ **

**_Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, says the Song, for thy love is better than wine. John, John, do not die. Wait for me, I will come to you._ **

**I will, thinks Holmes. I will survive this. But in his heart, he doubts. The plain where the Mammasenni keep their flocks and hives terminates in a lake, densely fringed with reeds and thronged with wildfowl; a sportsman’s delight. Jamshid mandates a halt, although they had halted not long before, and Holmes has, perforce, to wait in an air rent with the repeated sharp crack of muskets, until the muleteers return, their belts festooned with dead fowl. He catalogues the birds in his mind, noting quite absently a melanistic form of a common duck and two peculiar widgeon, and makes a mental note to re-read, on his eventual return, what his late uncle William, author of ‘Sketches on the Shores of the Caspian’ and an ornithologist of some note, has reported about Persian fauna. The plucked and roasted birds themselves – he saves a few distinctive feathers for further identification – he declines, although the muleteers devour them with greedy pleasure.**

**The Khotal-I-Dokhter – the Pass of the Maiden – Holmes sees the similarity with the English word, daughter, and wonders anew at the strange links between languages so far apart  - is worse than either of the two he has ascended so far. Looking at the vain attempts to mend the stairway in the rock – attempts that have left a path that is now nothing but perilous islands of rock, with the soil eroded around the artificial paving – he dismounts and gives Laleh her head. She picks her way daintily around the treacherous reefs, and he follows her, stepping as carefully as he can. One mule, more burdened, and less sure-footed, jams a hoof between two rocks, and is freed only with difficulty. Holmes insists the animal’s wound is salved, and its leg bound before they continue. Two near-vertical stretches, both of about seven hundred feet, nearly defeat him. At the top of the second, indeed, he sits and ducks his head between his knees; the climb, his labouring heart, and the thinning air conspire to rob him of breath. Jamshid, chewing tobacco and spitting unpleasantly close to him, tells him he is a fool and should have let the mule take the load. He also expresses a strong desire to move faster, so that they can get to Mian Khotal before darkness falls, hinting of bandits, which Holmes knows are a danger, and mountain lions, which he knows are not (although it is true that boar, wolves and hyaena abound). Holmes picks himself up and struggles on: he must traverse half the path up the next pass, the Khotal-I-Pir-I-Zan, to reach the caravanserai where they rest for the night.**

**_My dear John, cor cordium_ **

**_Why have I no news of you? For two days there has been no telegraph: how can my brother torture me like this? Two, nay three, short words: Watson yet lives. Is that so much to ask? If he understood my sorrow, my grief and guilt, he would have pity._ **

**_The evening finds me in Mian Khotal, at the cost of some pains, and my poor little beast’s strength. I have bought her, and the injured mule off that wretch Jamshid, and shall make a present of them to some gentle person here. At least they may rest and heal for a while. The journey has cost me strength too, I confess. I must sleep tonight, and will take opium. How I long for our cocaine: I know your views on it, but what if it is the only thing that enables me to carry on? Do I take it, against your wishes, and return to you, or die of exhaustion in some desolate valley? The point is moot, however, for there is no cocaine to be had. No, I will, I must continue. If I can render Moran harmless, I will be able to return. I was a fool to take this task: I did so not for the joy of the chase, but only because – oh, let me confess it – because it seemed better to be away from you. We had not lived together for so long. And then, that last week in Switzerland, before Reichenbach: how bittersweet, how intolerable, the ecstasy of your presence, the agony of your distance. To be with you again was to return to a drug: an addiction I could neither slake nor subdue._ **

**_John, you. You on that last morning over coffee, sleepy-eyed and yawning, your ruffled hair, the soft stripe of bristle along your jaw-line that I indicated with a raised eyebrow and a disdainful finger, bidding you take more care in your shaving. Your rueful chuckle, your hand on my shoulder as you passed me to rectify it. The scent of your tobacco, of your flesh. Your eyes, so warmly affectionate as they met mine, your happiness – I saw it – your unfeigned joy that we were together as of old. What refined torture, what exquisite torment! I could not bear the burning, after so long - to have you, and not have you. And so my choice was made, to my then and – if John, if we are never to meet again -  to my eternal, regret and sorrow._ **

**_Stay, John. Stay till I return, even if it is only to reject me. But stay: I cannot  live if I do not know that you are alive somewhere in the world, even if you live hating me._ **

**The climb continues. From Mian Khotal to the station at Dasht-I-Arzen is only half the distance he has traversed the preceding day, but his path lies up what can only be described as a waterless mountain torrent, with every twist, turn, and incoherent tumble of rock that that describes. His new mule is a taller, stronger beast, young, cross-grained, and with a mouth like iron: Holmes cannot steer, but must, perforce, go where he is taken. Fortunate, then, he thinks, that the mule, Balut, is exceedingly sure-footed, hauling Holmes to the top without difficulty. He dismounts to give the animal a breather, essays a gentle pat on the velvety muzzle, and barely rescues his hand as long yellow teeth clack sharply together where his fingers had been a few moments ago. Dariush raises a stick to the mule but Holmes stops him. Misery, he thinks, need not be added to misery. He tells Dariush that he will walk for a while, and hands over the reins. The Khotal once gained, there is a long slope downhill to the lake which sits in the basin of Dasht-I Arzen - which at least gives his labouring heart some relief. Wildfowl eddy and whirl about the lake, deer graze along its banks, and a fox runs by.  If he were not tormented by thoughts of John alone, distressed, dying, he might even find the place beautiful.**

**_My dear John,_ **

**_Yet again there is no news of you at the telegraph station. I have heard nothing now since Kamarij, when Mycroft informed me that your wife was near her end, and you gravely ill. I know her malady admits of no cure, so I cannot hope that she still lives for you – I know your gentle heart and I fear for you in what will be a bitter, bitter sorrow – but dare I hope that you still live even in such sorrow? It seems selfish to want you to stay – but I am a selfish man: I always wanted you to stay. I wonder if you will resent, after her death, the times you spent away from her at my behest?_ **

**_I tried not to deduce your marriage, John. It seemed a betrayal of trust, more especially when the reasons for that marriage were clear to both of us. I know that you entered into it in good faith, with some affection, and a true desire to be kind to your Mary. I saw – I could not well not see -  that there were disappointments, both for you and for her, and I was sorry for both of you, but selfishly glad for myself, that your faith to me, your devotion to me, remained unspotted. It is vile that I could think so. I wish I did not, but I find I am a jealous man. At least I had enough of the dissembler in me to be courteous, but I pray you may never know the torments that racked my breast when I pictured you even sitting together over the fire as we used to sit, the stab of agony with which I heard her name fall gently from your lips._ **

**_And yet I would that she lived, if it were only to make you happy: I want no sadness for you, my dearest, my best of friends. My life, my second soul. My halved heart, dear Damon. Oh, this is insanity: I rave -  I am distracted! If I could at once transport myself to your bedside, what happiness would it be to care for you, to prove my devotion. Where is my intellect: my vaunted powers, where are they now? What use are they to me when I can do nothing for the man whom above all others I hold most dear? John, do not leave me . . ._ **

**Balut jogs steadily on – he is smooth-gaited, but Holmes feels as if his bones are being racked with each step he takes. The gentle slopes up from Dasht-I-Arzen to the plateau are far easier than the khotals, and they are beautiful: fruit trees of all types, pear, apple, plum and barberry abound. The air is fragrant with roses and hyacinths so that he rides through a veritable Eden. Before the noontide is well over, the square, white quadrilateral of the caravanserai of Khan-I-Zinian comes into sight, and the end of the day’s journey with the drawing on of dusk.**

**Holmes dismounts, and stands for a moment, clinging to Balut’s saddle. His bones ache, and he shivers. Dariush is arguing with Jamshid: whatever the cause of their dispute is he is victorious, and he comes to Holmes triumphant, to lead him to a room in the caravanserai. He explains, guiding Holmes’ wavering footsteps with a courteous hand under one elbow, that Holmes had very much better go to bed, that he has sent Hamid for bathing water, soup, and a herb-woman of some note, that Holmes must let himself be cared for, and that Dariush and Hamid will not allow any harm to come to him.**

**The herb-woman’s draught – some bitter wormwood of the mountains – is vile, but it is also soporific, and Holmes sinks into a deep sleep, only vaguely aware, as the waves drag him under, of Dariush and Hamid conversing in low tones as they unroll their pallets in a corner of the room.**

**When he wakes, it is to a clearer head, and, given the shorter shadows, the knowledge that he has slept into the afternoon, a fact which Hamid, left to watch him, confirms. Dariush has gone to purchase a late noon-tide meal for them: they will spend a second night in the caravanserai before embarking on the remaining thirty miles to Shiraz. To do this journey in one day requires a very early start, and so despite his weakness, Holmes insists on rising, dressing, and seeing Jamshid. He cannot win the man’s loyalty, but he can buy it, and he does, expending money on a whole lamb, the arak-like spirit that passes for good alcohol in this poor community, and excellent tobacco. Thus fortified, Jamshid and his team express themselves as happy to pass the evening feasting, on the understanding that at cock-crow they will be on the road once more.**

**There is no telegram at the caravanserai. Holmes bites back his pain.**

**Later, as they prepare once more for the night, Dariush approaches Holmes, placing a gentle hand on his sleeve. ‘John?’ he asks, timidly. ‘Who is John, whom you cried for in the night? When you dreamed?’**

**Holmes looks into the boy’s dark eyes, beautiful eyes, soft with affection. ‘My friend,’ he says. He will never see this lad again after Shiraz: what harm can there be in speaking of the man he loves?**

**‘Nur-e cheshm-e man aset,’ he admits. ‘Atashé del am. Hamsar am.’ He is the light of my eyes; the fire of my heart. My equal head.**

**‘Is he your lover?’ Dariush asks, searching Holmes’ face. ‘Aya eashq tust, Sigerson mirza? Nashkan delamo.’ Don’t break my heart.**

**‘Aw m'eshewq men aset. He is my beloved,’ Holmes tells him, hardly daring to speak the words. ‘Always and forever my only beloved. You are as kind and as beautiful as Bagoas, Dariush, my friend, but John is my Alexander and I his Hephaistion.’**

**The hand strokes his arm briefly, then is courteously withdrawn. ‘I see and hear and understand,’ Dariush says. He is tight-lipped – has the arrow pierced him so deep, in so short a time, wonders Holmes, bemused that his scarred, scrawny frame, his greying temples can inspire even a moderate affection – but bears his disappointment bravely. ‘But you are my Alexander, my lord. There will never be another.’**

**‘You are yet young,’ Holmes reminds him, grieved for his grief, and for a love he cannot and will not return. ‘There will be other lovers,’**

**‘No,’ Dariush’s back is straight, his air proud. ‘When you found your Alexander, did you not know? Did not the bolt strike you, when first you saw him? It is not given to all to find their lord, but when we find him, we know.’**

**‘I knew,’ says Holmes, ‘I could not mistake it,’ and the boy nods once before slipping from the room.**

**_My dear John,_ **

**_I have had a fever – perhaps it is yet upon me, for I find myself still unwell today. I dreamed of you last night. You stood before me smiling, your blue eyes clear and gentle. When I approached you, you held out your hand, and bade me come closer. As I moved, you reached out to me but touching your hand I found it stone, and I saw that you wore a shroud of white linen. Your lips were chill against mine, and they drew the warmth from me, until I was myself as cold as your corpse. My soul fled my body, and I knew no more, until I woke with your name on my lips, and my face wet._ **

**_John, you are the light of my eyes, the fire of my heart. Without your light I am blind; without your warmth, my spirit dies. You are my spouse, the equal partner of my soul. May I be granted only the time to tell you this, though the world end in fire and ruin._ **

**Holmes does not walk at all the following day, but clings grimly to Balut’s saddle and endures. Dariush and Hamid ride one on either side of him, close, to support him if he wavers. After travelling some distance through the scrub land after Khan-I-Zinian, the road conducts into an upland valley, watered by a river which, from its wide, stony bed, was once of considerable volume, but is now an attenuated streamlet. Finally the track becomes broader and easier, and begins its slow descent to the Shiraz Plain. A sudden turn, and the distant cypress spires, the scattered gardens, and the bulbous cupolas of Shiraz’s mosques come into view.**

**The company makes a brief pause at the caravanserai of Chenar-I-Rahdar: Dariush brings Holmes mint tea, and they go on. It is a mere three farsakhs now in Persian reckoning, he tells Holmes. Nine miles, thinks Holmes and is irrationally infuriated that his brain, despite his body’s fatigue, is unable to stop itself from analysing, checking, calculating, working; a frenetic, ceaseless internal discourse on everything from the phonetic difference between the Persian name for a unit of measurement, and the Greek ‘parsec’,  to leaping thence into further categorisations of the pre-Hellenic Greek ‘phrater’ ( the sound similarity bringing it to mind), its analogies with Latin ‘frater’, Sanskrit ‘bhratr’, and English ‘brother’, and why its use in modern Greek has been occluded by the word ‘adelphos’, surely a reference to Apollo. He is exhausted by it, but the insistent chatter in his head will not stop.**

**He is only aware that he has voiced any of this – and more besides -  aloud when Hamid asks him if he wishes to stop at Bagh-I-Sheihk, on the western edge of Shiraz, to call at the offices of the Indo-European telegraph company, and Dariush asks him if he is expecting a telegraph message. Holmes retains enough presence of mind to assent, and when they do stop, sends the boy in to ask. He returns waving a distinctive slip of buff paper for which Holmes holds out a shaking hand. He hardly dares to look.**

**_Sigerson, Shiraz. She died on Tuesday. It was peaceful in the end. He is out of danger: no longer in a fever, although weak. I will not let you lose him. MH._ **

**The world spins into darkness.**

*****

‘What, exactly, am I looking for?’ asked Watson. We sat in the drawing room with papers spread out on every surface. ‘Holmes, these sorry rags are replete with accounts of human misery and self-murder. What will distinguish those self-murderers we are looking for from those we are not?’

‘I do not know entirely: it is difficult to explain. You may rule out every mention of some wretched young woman who destroys herself because a man has had his way with her and she has found herself with child, for one thing, or any female who is of the impecunious classes. Any man, also, I suppose, although that is harder to determine. There are impecunious men enough of good status, in poverty because of gambling debts, or ill-made business deals. It is not that.’

‘So we are looking for men of certain classes?’

‘And women too.’

‘So persons of some birth, and breeding perhaps, and status? So they would have money and disposable assets?’

‘Yes, although members of the trading classes are also potential victims . . .’

He rolled his eyes at me. ‘I am not obdurately stupid, Holmes. You are looking for people who have money, from whom money or goods may be extorted then; who, because they have a reputation to maintain, and fear exposure for some hidden crime or ill-managed part of their lives, are the victims of a blackmailer, and have taken the ultimate course to remove the threat from their lives. You have been muttering about this for some days: deducing it is not difficult. Is this something that has come to your notice from the papers, or is it from an enquiry? Or is it to do with Meiklejohn, whom we had to deal with last year? He is an extortionist, is he not?’

‘Indeed he has been, but he is quite discredited since the Dublin Castle trials, and is lying low. I would not put it past him to operate by proxy, however, so I am grateful to you for reminding me that this might indeed be something he would know about. No, it is that I was at the Yard yesterday, talking to Lestrade while you were at Barts, and later at your interminable meeting with that unpleasant fellow Stead, and the virtuous Mrs Butler - ’

‘ – do not sneer at her, Holmes,: she is a noble woman, and it is beneath you to snipe and fleer at someone for doing good. I admit she has an air of - ’

‘ – prosy, tedious piety, admit that also, Watson - ’

‘ – very well: her conversation, although always edifying, can cause a yawn or two, but the substance is of such sense and intelligence, that one forgives her the length. In any case, pray continue, now you have vented your spleen. I believe we should take a walk this afternoon, my dear fellow to blow the cobwebs away, and might I enquire whether you are in need of a wholesome dose this evening? You are never more acerbic than when nature is recalcitrant - ’

‘ – really, Watson, how indelicate. I find myself in the best and most regular of health, thank you, now that I no longer take morphine. In any case, _revenons a nos moutons._ Lestrade mentioned that the force is beginning to accumulate reports of suicides that do not fit the common pattern: the wronged and desperate girl, the failed tradesman, the melancholic, the alcoholic and the lunatic. These are cases where, for no apparent reason, on occasion a young woman, perhaps on the verge of a marriage, or some few years into it; but more likely a man in good standing, a professional or army man with, to all appearances, not a care in the world, lays violent hands on themselves, and leaves no reason for their abrupt self-destruction but a scant note of apology and no clues.’

‘You intrigue and sadden me at once, Holmes,’ He looked up from his seat in the sea of tumbled paper. ‘You sadden me very much. I hate to think of some filthy leech battening upon their hapless victim, sucking the life and joy from them for what was perhaps nothing more than a small indiscretion. And it is true that men are vulnerable – we have more opportunity for misbehaviour after all – but how much more so some tender, confiding girl, betrayed perhaps by a lover, and paying a terrible price for an over-affectionate letter or ill-given lock of hair. Society is infinitely harder on the girl: one false step and she is ruined.’

‘Well that is certainly a romantic way of looking at it, my dear writer of stories. Personally, I feel sorry for anyone in the grip of a criminal, whether they be young, female and beautiful or old, ugly and male. Shall we continue to look now? I do not see, as I said, exactly what I hope to find; I only know that I will know it when I see it, and so, I believe, will you.’

We spent the rest of the morning trawling the papers, and by afternoon had come up with a handful of suicides that seemed inexplicable – one young woman of 21 or so, the second daughter of a Major in Launceston, a Mr John Shepherd, 22, of Poplar (although he was a surgeon, preparing for exams: there might have been some intellectual doubt to cause his overdose of opium). More promising were the cases of Thomas Nash, a forty-year-old Lincoln’s Inn solicitor, who blew his brains out with a revolver, and a military man of sixty-eight, Colonel Peel, also from London, who did the same. Scant pickings, but something to investigate, at least.

‘So it is a beginning,’ Watson remarked, as we strolled gently through Regent’s Park, arm in arm. ‘One hopes we have made some progress, and I have prepared a new scrap-book for you, old fellow, so we may collate the information in a tidy fashion. I do so hope you enjoy the Mikado this evening, Holmes. I am grateful that you will attend it with me: it is really not your sort of music at all.’

‘Well, if I do not like it, I shall have my revenge later this month.’ I smiled at him, ‘when you will be compelled to listen to an entire new symphony by M. Dvorak.’

‘You have promised me Wagner, as well as your impassioned Russian - ’

‘ – he is a Czech, my dear boy; do at least attempt to keep up - ’

‘Czech then, and three stirring overtures into the bargain. I shall not mind the new music very much, but be glad to be your companion, as always. Holmes, what do you think of these latest developments in Afghanistan? I confess, I have been wondering of late whether, in this pinch, I should re-enlist. This latest development at Panjdeh is not promising. I know the country; if it comes to close fighting, there will be many losses. And although I cannot fight, I can still stitch a wound or alas, take off a mangled leg. Should I go, do you think?’

‘By no means,’ I clutched his arm more tightly, a cold shiver running through me. He to enlist! To travel far away from me, court injury and death where I could not save him. ‘You cannot go, Watson -  the  - the p - poor of London need you here, to advocate for them.’ _And so do I: I will die if you abandon me._ ‘Let the Russians and the Afghans fight the war without you; your place is here,’ _With me, with me, by my side. Close to me_. ‘Surely there are other, younger men who can take up your place.’

‘But many of them have wives, families, people they need to care for,’ he pointed out. ‘I am a single man, of very little import to anyone on this planet. I have no family to miss me.’

‘I cannot see that it is your duty. And you have me. I would miss you.’ _Have me, Watson. For you, I am to be had. Just take me._ I wonder at my unruly mind.

‘And I you, my dearest friend, my more than brother.’ He stroked my sleeve – tenderly? Was that tenderness, in his eye, in his aspect?  ‘But how if it be my duty? Holmes, three years ago the Russian outposts on the road from the Caspian were at Krasnovodsk, and Chikishlar, seven hundred clear miles from Herat. At the beginning of the year they were at Pul-I-Khatum, an advance of five hundred and fifty miles. On the road from the Oxus, they were at Katra Kurghan, five hundred miles from Herat. In January they reached Zotaten, a mere one hundred and forty miles away. In the last month, according to the dispatches from the front, they have made new ground. At Pul-I-Khisti they are only a few miles north of the Afghan outpost and Panjdeh, and they have camps in the Zulfikar pass. I cannot describe to you the tremendous speed and determination of that advance: a man who has never travelled the country might say what of it, what of those miles, but I assure you - ’

‘Well what of them?’ I knew my tone was sharp, for he looked at me in surprise. ‘How can that concern you? You cannot stop the might of the Russian bear single-handed, Dr Watson. Stay: you can be of more use here. Attend your meetings, fight for those unfortunate women and children like the gallant knight you are.’ _Please. Please Watson, for the love of God do not go back to war. If you go, you will most assuredly be killed, and then I shall die as well._

‘I shall have to consider it,’ he told me. ‘You know I do not want to go back, Holmes, my dear man, because I have told you that before. But if it were to come to all out war with Russia, then it is every man’s duty to serve as best he can. I am a doctor trained in combat injuries: although there is little enough we can do for them, better I than some raw recruit out of Netley, trembling in his boots with fear. You would not hang back yourself in the circumstances: I know that reckless courage of yours, and your brave, true heart, my Damon.’

‘I would not have you go, my Pythias.’

‘Then I shall endeavour to suit your inclination to my duty, and my obligations to your desires. In any case, it is not upon us, and may not be. For all the sabre-rattling I do not entirely think that the great powers wish for war. May we come to happier days then, and peace, at last, in our times.’

‘From your lips to God’s ears, if there be a God. Have we walked enough to suit you? These April winds are subtle, they creep up on a man before he is aware.’

‘If you ate more regularly, you would be better furnished against the cold, Holmes.’ He pulled me closer, pressing our arms together. ‘Never was there a chillier mortal than you. Yes, let us turn back.’

‘Well, I shall take a little cocaine to fortify me before we venture out this evening. The four per-cent solution is proving more efficacious than the two, and I have taken none since yesterday evening. It is a pity you cannot stomach it, Watson.’

‘I fear in my case it is most definitely contraindicated.’

Watson had tried cocaine in smaller doses on several occasions, but as each administration produced acute headache, and a pronounced (and, to say the truth, terrifying) tachycardia we had reluctantly concluded that he was one of those rare people whom the drug did not suit. I was sorry for it, since as an euphoric and stimulant I found it remarkably useful. Carefully titrating my dose throughout the week enabled me to control those periods of ennui and low mood which, strangely, seemed to have been becoming more frequent of late.

Our as-yet limited use of the drug had produced some interesting results, however. The cocaine cigarettes and cigars we had, by mutual consent, discontinued, since we both of us preferred the smell and taste of plain tobacco, and I found swallowing a dose more effective. We had both tried nasal and buccal administration, but while agreeing that these might be extremely useful where analgesia was required, the side-effects were unpleasant: it had taken Watson a good twenty minutes to stem a nose bleed that left me shaking and faint, and him liberally bespattered with my blood. We had eventually had to resort to gauze packing and ice - and the resultant mess meant I was unwilling to experiment further. I had no wish for him to see me in such undignified straits. One cannot expect a man to see one in a romantic light – and hope had not yet died that he would someday see me in such – when he is engaged in inserting folded gauze into one’s nostrils with a pair of blunt forceps. A gunshot wound, if not serious, and honourably acquired, may be productive of a declaration of affection – at least if one is to believe the romances that Watson reads. A nosebleed is plain, and prosaic, and most dreadfully lowering.

‘I prescribe a glass of sherry for you before we go out, in that case,’ I told him. ‘And I am sure I shall not find the Mikado at all disagreeable.’

*****

‘That is an interesting trio,’ said Watson, softly, his lips close to my ear. We were in the foyer of the St James’ Concert Hall, to hear Dvorak’s new symphony, and he was in fine form: smiling, dapper, most elegantly turned out – and a long way from the shabby, exhausted figure of four – good heavens was it really four – years ago.

 A week earlier, I had suffered the Mikado with as good a grace as I might – a thistledown piece, all bright trills and popular references – diverted more by watching Watson than by the action on the stage. His wholehearted enjoyment of each witty recitative, each sentimental aria was reflected in his face: transparent as glass he sighed, looked pensive, chuckled heartily, waited with bated breath for some denouement, straightened at the stirring martial movements – oh, it was a feast to me to watch. I loved to see him happy.

The last sentimental ballad – George Grossmith’s ponderously clownish Koko singing a ridiculous tale of a lovelorn bird sighing on a willow tree to the aging and unlovely Katisha – Rosina Brandram in the role was an unexpected pleasure: a fine voice, very fine indeed – brought my Watson to tears; an unashamed welling in his eyes, and a falling trace. I passed my handkerchief quickly into his hand, and he gripped mine before taking it and wiping the drops away. Looking around I saw others so affected and wondered at it: there was no real torment here to pierce the soul, but all would end happily ever after. For myself I had only winced internally at the sharp slyness with which Gilbert portrayed an unwanted woman, and wondered that Sullivan, a composer of some merit, should lend himself to such unkind frippery. Now, however, I looked forward to a musical feast, full of delectable courses, for we were not only to hear Dvorak’s long awaited new symphony, but other pieces of great interest to me.

‘There,’ Watson discreetly indicated the three men who had caught his eye. ‘I realise, now he has turned that I know of one of them, of course – alas that I do -  but not the other two. Deduce them for me, Holmes.’

I looked across the shifting crowds in the foyer – the event was crowded: royalty present in the guise of their Graces of Edinburgh, and the duchess looking a trifle more complaisant than usual – to where his trio stood in a window embrasure.

‘What is it you wish to know?’ I murmured. I touched his arm and carefully drew him with me into a more advantageous place for observation. ‘I take it that it is the military fellow that is known to you: enlighten me first as to him. For one of those men is known to me, and so I can tell you already that your army colleague keeps dangerous company.’

‘He is one Sebastian Moran,’ said Watson quietly, and as he did so, the tall colonel (for such I deduced him to be) looked up as if he had heard. He could not have done so of course: Watson’s words reached only my ear, and, moreover, he was turned away from the gentleman. ‘A colonel in the Indian army, a villain of an ugly cut, a Pandarus and an whore-monger, a practised shikari, a tenacious hunter – and a man who has made India too hot to hold him at last. And that, my dear Holmes, takes some doing: they are a lax lot out there when it comes to morals.’

‘He looks dangerous: violence sits on that front and gleams in his fierce eye. He is wary as a wild beast himself, just see how he glances around. I wonder much to see him with a man I last saw – or believed I had seen – must indeed have seen -bartering for diamonds in a dirty estaminet in Antwerp. I must learn more of Mr Henry Judson Raymond. Or Mr Adam Worth, as he is known to Pinkertons, the Yard and the Sûreté. For that is who stands with your military friend.’

‘No friend of mine, dear fellow. I abhor all that he stands for. So the second is your diamond merchant, and possible criminal, if the police are to be believed. How have they not yet exposed him if he is so much suspected: does not that stretch belief? But what of the third? The tall, thin man, with the pale face? “Yon Cassius hath a lean and hungry look,” as Caesar said, “I like him not: such men are dangerous.”’

‘I do not know him. His clothing is of the finest: he is wealthy. His physiognomy is repellent: observe the great dome of the forehead, and those deeply sunken eyes. He is reptilian in aspect -  I have seen just such a motion of the head in some snake desiring to fascinate its prey, an oscillation that bewitches the unwary creature until the beast strikes. His rounded shoulders and that prim, ascetic mien indicate the scholar, but of what, I do not know. Of science? He is not a medical man, that is for certain: there is no kind and loving heart beats in his narrow breast - nor an army man, for I see no signs of it. A banker perhaps? Come away, Watson, let us observe no longer. I feel the fascination one feels with some creeping, unclean thing: a sensation of horror. I do not want to look at him any longer: let us go.’

‘Holmes, you are shivering. Come, my dear, let us find our seats. I would not have directed your attention to the man had I realised he would affect you so strongly.’

I allowed Watson to draw me away from the crowd, and to our box, where we might sit comfortably retired from the crowd. In truth, I was rather shaken: I had never experienced such a chill before in the presence of a man. In a woman’s presence, yes, a sensation of cold in the marrow. Perhaps it was a lingering remembrance of childhood. In any case I was glad to sit down beside Watson, to feel the comforting warmth of his arm and thigh against mine.

The concert was divine: the heights of emotion were reached. I was quickly lost to all save the thrill and swell of the music; I floated on a celestial sea of sound, experiencing the interwoven harmonies of strings and brass and woodwind both in their separate voices and joined in one great swell of light and colour, a breaking wave, and I riding it, a god, exulting. I only came to myself a little when Mr Lloyd sang the Preislied from Wagner’s Meistersingers. The sweet, mellow, tenor solo brought me back from my ecstasy, and becoming aware of my surrounding once more, I became aware also that Watson’s cheeks were wet, and his hand clenched where it lay on his knee. I extended my own hand, covered his, and softly, naturally, his turned to mine and held, and confided. It rested within my grasp as if it had always belonged there, and always would. My heart turned over, and I moved my thigh enough to drop our linked hands between us. It would not do to be observed, thus joined like lovers.

We stayed so until the end of the concert –  Watson released me only to applaud the orchestra and singers, turning to me with a rueful smile as he realised we had sat hand in hand through Spohr’s overture to Faust, Mozart’s overture to Don Giovanni, and Beethoven’s prelude to his opera, Leonora. It was a delightful concert from beginning to end, he told me, and performed in masterly fashion.

 An ill-sorted trio of musical themes, I commented to Watson as the stage emptied and the hall began to be filled with the rustle of people leaving: the bargain of a doomed man with his pursuing devil and the punishment of a villain by a ghost, followed by the triumph of wedded affection and faithful love. ‘But you enjoyed the music all the same, my dear fellow?’

‘More than I had thought I would,’ he admitted, and cleared his throat. ‘I – damn it, Holmes, it is not that I do not enjoy music. It is that it moves me sometimes unbearably – stirs that in me which I would fain -  ’

‘ – as it does me, my dear Watson. I am not impervious to the siren song of the divine Euterpe, and - ’

‘ – subdue, and I cannot sometimes – well, you saw for yourself how shamefully I was affected by it. You, when I observed you during the Dvorak, seemed as if rapt away to some aerial and heavenly plane, but I, I am afraid, am a creature of earthly clay and salt water and so must weep.’

‘It argues a very feeling heart in you,’ I rejoined. I wanted desperately to take his hand, to wander home with him thus, linked as lovers, but all I could do was take his arm. ‘Do not be ashamed of it, my dear fellow. It is a most becoming gentleness.’

We progressed on through the crowd, I so enwrapt in his presence that I scarcely noticed our surroundings, but as we gained the cool air, I was recalled to myself by his soft exclamation. Our path had brought us across that of the three men we had noticed earlier – they were again in earnest colloquy -  and the wary soldier fellow – Moran, Watson had called him - clearly recognised my companion as an army acquaintance, for he stepped forward, and made as if to speak.

Watson cut him. My gentle companion, my kind and loving friend, administered the cut direct: the sharpest and most pointed of snubs. It was a full, deliberate stare, flint-eyed, and unwavering, then a military turning away. Moran flushed a dull, ugly red, and stepped back. It was over in a second, and it was unremarked, thank God, in that bustle by any save those it affected, for it could have ruined Watson socially as well, he being of lesser rank in the army, and of less standing.

‘What was that?’ I asked him, as we turned down the street. ‘I have never seen you – I have never seen you behave so severely. What has he done?’

‘He is a taker and an user of young men and women.’ Watson replied. He was shivering - with repressed anger, not with cold. ‘And he is not above acting as procurer for others of his ilk, for the joy of that foul game, and to see innocence ruined. He is a man of dishonour, a cheat at cards, a wolvish fleecer of stray lambs; a plucker of any unwary young pigeon that falls into his hawk’s claws. I detest him. I have always detested him. We did not mess or fight together, but his reputation stank throughout the cantonments where we both served. And as a colonel, he played David to more than one Uriah, if reports are true. Certainly he was not unwilling to console his junior officers’ weeping widows.’

‘His actions are grave indeed then. But I have never seen you cut anyone, Watson.’

‘And I daresay you will not see me do so again: it is the most discourteous of acts, not to be resorted to save in extremity. Let us talk of other things than Moran, my dear Holmes, for his name tastes foul in my mouth. Sweeten it with kinder discourse, I beg you. I did not like those three, and I am sorry I drew your attention to them. I had not recognised Moran when I first spoke to you to point them out – he has aged greatly in the five or so years since I saw him – and had I done so, I would have kept silence. It was only that something in their manner as they stood together, some whiff of foul air about them, that drew my attention. They looked – well, perhaps I am imagining it – ominous, somehow. Portentous. But I am sorry for mentioning it.’

‘So am not I sorry, Watson. Moran, you say, is a villain, and Adam Worth to my certain knowledge is one as well, albeit he is clever enough to cloak it in respectability. And since birds of a feather flock together, their reptilian companion, whoever he be, must assuredly be joined with them in some infamy or other. I must set my lads to the hunt: it will not do to lag on the track of evil.’

*****

‘The government has called out the reserves.’ Watson, frowning, looked up from the newspaper as I entered the drawing room. ‘And Mr Gladstone has asked the House for a credit of eleven million pounds. War with Russia is almost upon us, Holmes.’

‘But it is not here, and may yet be averted.’ I deposited a twisted and mangled can of paint on the table with some relief. ‘Watson, I am sadly in need of your services. If you would oblige me by desisting from these gloomy prognostications and attending to my - leg, I would be eternally grateful. I fear I have quite ruined these trousers.’

He threw down the paper. ‘Holmes, what have you done now? Where have you been? I woke and you had already risen and gone out with not even a note to me. Sit down, sit down at once, and let me tend to you. I will just call for tea: I am sure you need some.’

‘I have already asked Mrs Hudson to send some up. I cannot sit down unless you cover the chair: blood and velvet do not go together.’

‘Blood! Stand and let me see. Good grief, man, what have you been about? Here is altogether too much; your trousers are soaked. Into the bathroom with you instantly, and let me see what you have done. You are a wretched fellow, why did you not wake me if you were on an errand of danger?’

‘You had a bad night,’ I replied, meekly enough, letting myself be shepherded towards the tub, ‘and I did not want to wake you. When I heard you call out in the night – this war business is giving you dreams again, Watson, do not deny it – and after I had woken you and you slept again, I decided to let you rest. I did not think – ’

‘ – of course you did not think: when do you ever think, my dear man, when it is some issue that you consider pressing? Sit down, sit down here now. Yes, perch on the edge. I shall use a towel, and to hell with the stain. Where the deuce is Mrs Hudson with the water – there is none hot, of course, there never is when one needs it – and the tea.’

‘I – I would sooner have brandy if you would not mind, John. I feel a little - ’

‘Put your head between your knees.’ His hand was on the back of my neck, and the firm grip both calmed and steadied me. ‘There, my dear, just a little longer, until the dizziness has passed off and what blood you have left is returned to that reckless brain of yours. Mrs Hudson, just put the tea down and fetch me the brandy, if you please. Mr Holmes is feeling a little faint.’

‘I am not in the least surprised. No, Mr Holmes, I shall not be coming in, not that there is anything I have not seen before at my age. There is blood on the doorstep, where Mr Holmes sat down, and I must go and wipe it up. Will you need assistance, Doctor? Shall I call another physician?’

‘No, I can manage, thank you.’ He lowered me to the floor, propping me against the bath, and handed me the glass. ‘Here, sip this. Stay, Mrs Hudson, before you go, if you will hand me the scissors from the mantlepiece. I shall have to cut these trousers off. And pray send Janey up with a jug of very hot water; there is only cold here and I do not have time to wait for this damn cumbersome system to heat.’

He stripped me of my trousers, despite my protests that I had no desire to have them ruined, and would have slit my drawers but for my protest. They were new, machine-knit silk of the softest make, and had cost me more than I liked, but they did not chafe or rub, and I valued that comfort.

‘Let me take them off, Watson, you must not spoil them. They cost me dear.’

‘They are ripped and there is a damn great patch of blood, you foolish fellow. What did you do? No wait, I cannot see to this with you standing. Come into your bedroom, and lie on the bed. Put your arm over my shoulder, that is right, and onto the bed with you. Good, that will do. No, lie down flat. We shall do finely now. Tell me my dear boy: how did this happen?’

He was rolling my vest above my waist as he spoke, and I braced myself as he gently pulled down my drawers. ‘I slipped.’

There was a brief silence then, ‘You  - slipped? There is a gash here that goes from the middle of your – gluteus maximus – to the crease in your thigh.’ His finger ghosted alongside the torn skin, and I winced. ‘Good lord, man, had it been any lower you could have gelded yourself. Had you nicked your femoral artery we would not be talking now, for you would have bled out within minutes, but this is venous blood.’ He was cleaning me with some cool liquid as he spoke, his hands warm and terribly gentle on my bare flesh. ‘I am sorry, my dear chap, this will sting.’

It did sting, and I had to blink back tears. ‘Lestrade asked me to attend the scene at the Admiralty, where the bomb was placed a few days ago. The paint can I have brought home is, I am certain, the source of the dynamite that was detonated: two men dressed as workmen brought it in concealed so. I believe that it will be possible to find traces of the substance inside it. It had been quite overlooked as a clue by the investigating inspectors, and was under some quantity of rubble so of course I had to manoeuvre myself around fallen plaster and smashed glass to obtain it. In doing so, I slipped and fell, that is all. At least I saved my hands, but I sat down rather hard.’

‘Sat on plaster, and broken glass. And splintered wood, no doubt? Then you are well served. Really, Holmes, have you no sense of self-preservation? Stay still, I must check if there be glass in the wound, and I need a better light. I must fetch the lamp.’

He was away only a few seconds, grumbling under his breath. I saw from the change in shadows that he had brought a lamp with him, which he set down next to me, before kneeling at my side. He placed a sheet, precisely, modestly, to cover my uninjured parts. Then his hands were on me.

He was so close to me that I could feel him breathing, warm on my bare skin. He inhaled, and I heard his breath check for an instant, before it gusted over me. His hand shook a little as it stroked over my skin, feeling for splinters.

‘I am so sorry,’ I said, thinking to placate him. ‘It was very foolish of me.’

‘More than you think,’ he muttered. His thumb pressed gently along the gash, and I winced. ‘Yes, there is glass there, I can see it. We will have that out.’ I felt a sharp prick as his forceps withdrew what must have been a sizeable shard.

‘Watson, that hurt!’

‘I am not surprised, it must be a quarter of an inch long. Hold still, Holmes, there is more. I will lay the pieces on a swab for you and then you may see what you have done to yourself.’

I have heard it said that there are those who, for preference, take their pleasure well laced with pain. I am no longer sure whether I am not one of them, or whether my hopeless desire for him rendered me impervious to the sting and smart, and most keenly alive to the pleasure of his gentle, caressing hands, his short-taken breath, the warmth of him near me. I only knew that if, at that moment, he had bidden me turn to face him, I would not have been able to without a very shameful display indeed. I was painfully, priapically, erect: no lusting satyr more so. I pressed myself down into the mattress, and he tapped me irritably on the uninjured buttock.

‘Stay still, damn you, you wriggle like an eel. How can I dress this if you are not quiet? I am out of all patience with you, running off without a word to me and getting yourself injured. And in such a place as well. You had better have gone to hospital: that is where this should have been dressed.’

‘No. You, or me, or no-one. I will not have another doctor.’ I pressed harder, willing myself flaccid and unaroused. ‘This is humiliating enough, Watson.’

‘And if it festers? You will go to hospital. There, I believe the glass is all out. I shall have to stitch this and dress it with basilicum powder and gauze and sticking plaster, You will be eating your dinner off the mantlepiece for a few days if I am not much mistaken, Holmes.’

At least my arousal had faded at both that prospect and under the needle, I reflected, enduring the rest of the process. Indeed, by the time he had finished I was sick and shaky, and only too glad to lie still and rest.

‘You cannot stay like that,’ he said. I turned, wincing, to prop myself on one hip, and looked at him: his colour was heightened, and his brow creased. He was biting his lip. ‘I shall fetch you a nightshirt, and you can rest properly in bed. Damn you, Holmes, I wish you would not do this sort of thing. Was there no spry young constable you could have asked but you had to go clambering over the ruins at the Admiralty? The reports in the papers say the room in which the explosion took place was well-nigh destroyed: of course it was unstable, of course you would slip, of course there would be damage. You really have no idea of the risks you run, man. If infection gets into a wound like this then it can end up with blood poisoning: just so did it happen with my shoulder. The inward blow drives debris and dirt into the flesh and then it festers. It took weeks for mine to heal, with fever, and drains for the purulent matter, and maggots to eat away the rot, and cutting again and again to healthy flesh. I do not want that for you, can you not see? I have seen men with tetanus, racked with spasms, dying with their jaws locked tight after such an injury.’

‘I am sorry.’ I had not been before: merely placatory, but I was now, seeing him so distressed. ‘I truly am sorry, John. Give me your hand, be at peace with me, do not scold - and I will try not to be so foolish again.’

He hesitated for a moment, still frowning, then with a wordless murmur he sat down hard on the bed and gathered me to him, holding me tightly against a heaving breast. For a brief, wonderful moment he cradled me, one hand stroking my hair, before he seemed to recollect himself: the sheet he had used to preserve my modesty had fallen aside and my naked thigh lay against his clothed one. He dropped a glance to my exposed member, flushed instantly scarlet, adjusted the sheet over me with shaking hands, and left me.

*****

Burns-Gibson came the next day to dress my wound; Watson remaining in the drawing room and leaving all to him, but interrogating him as to my state as he left. I heard their colloquy as I lay there fuming. Burns Gibson replied  - in positive vein, it would appear, followed by an interrogative, and Watson barked a short laugh in answer before replying. They retreated down the stairs, and it was some time before Watson returned alone.

Would he come to see me? I waited. I heard his footsteps – he wandered indecisively, it would seem, from window to door, and back again. At length he tapped on my door, and I told him to enter.

‘How are you feeling, Holmes?’ _Oh, this was bad._ No ‘my dear fellow.’ No ‘my dear Holmes,’ let alone ‘Sherlock’. (I disliked my name, but not on his lips.) Whatever ailed him I would have to work cleverly to address it, or he would be silent and distant with me, and I did not want that at all. Best to be blunt, then.

‘Why did you send Burns-Gibson to see me? You could have dealt with the problem, could you not? But you chose not to.’

‘I wanted a second opinion of course. Really, Holmes, what objection do you have to him? He is a good doctor, he knows you, and has treated you before. Moore Agar was out of town; he would have been my first choice.’

‘I want only you.’ _John. I want you._

He was scarlet again. ‘Holmes, we share rooms. We are fond and familiar together.’ At least he owned it. ‘I – I am not, not detached, as a physician should be with you. I was distressed for you yesterday, and I embraced you for comfort – for my comfort.’

‘And for mine. What of it? We have bathed together, John, you have held my head and I yours while in the throes of sickness. We sain each other’s bruises, bind each other’s cuts. I did not mind it. I was glad to be held. My head was spinning, and you were warm and comfortable. There was nothing wrong with what we did.’ _I wanted you to do more._

‘It was improper in the way of a professional relationship. I was doctoring you. I forgot myself, and my oath, and my professional duty. You were – very much at a disadvantage, and I was wrong. I agree that for some things it is acceptable. But for such a – such an – it was an – an intimate area. I should not have presumed.’

‘I think you are being ridiculous.’ Best to downplay it, shrug it off. Make a nothing of something which had been a good deal to me, to be held to his heart, to press close, to feel his hand on my hair. (And his leg against mine, and mine naked, his eyes on my, my _prick,_ his gaze fixed, pupils a little dilated. I had felt myself begin to stir as he looked at me (although I doubted if he had seen anything, so fast had his face been averted) and after his departure had touched myself with silent, desperate speed, despite my pain. The soiled handkerchief had gone into the fire, and then I had wept, briefly, for shame and sorrow.)  ‘If I were your little brother or sister you would not scruple so. You would have done just what you did: bind the wound and offer comfort. I am grateful.’ I held out my hand. ‘Come, Watson, do not be angry with yourself. I took no offence. I was hurt – I hurt myself very foolishly when I should have known better, and you were right to scold and be anxious.’

I paused: better to change the subject now, to return us to some semblance of normality. ‘In any case I am glad of it, since you have never spoken so openly of your wounds. Really, maggots? I know of them as decomposers of corpses, not as healers. Help me up, and let us sit – well, I will only perch, you were quite right there old fellow; I cannot sit properly and will not for a few days yet – and have a cup of coffee, and you can tell me about them; I must see whether I can experiment myself with using them.’

‘Let us hope it is not on your own wound,’ he replied, taking my hand and helping me recline more comfortably. ‘Do you forgive me, then, Holmes, for my familiarity? I should really not have embraced you in such a way, but I was so angry, and so relieved, and so – well in any case, I should not. I do most earnestly beg your pardon for my trespass against your privacy.’

‘I beg that you will cease instantly to refine so much upon trifles.’ I said, as haughtily as I knew how, and he gave a small appreciative chuckle. ( _Touch me, John. For the love of God, touch me. Trespass against me. Trespass further. Let me trespass against you. Were you to commit even the unnameable sin with me, I would forgive you your trespasses, I assure you – but would you forgive mine?)_ ‘Do not delay any further, but give me my coffee and tell me about maggots.’

‘And honey,’ he said, as he poured coffee for both of us. ‘There was honey involved too, you may be interested to know.’

‘Well now you must certainly tell me. Maggots and honey: how very singular. But do be quick with the coffee, old chap. I cannot wait for ever.’

‘You cannot ever wait,’ he grumbled, but his tone was fond, and I heaved a sigh of relief. I was safe. He would not go. ‘You will not. That is our problem in its entirety.’

*****

The Spring moved on, its primrose, gold and blue blushing to rose and purple as flower succeeded flower. At the beginning of May we attended the Royal Academy Hanging Day at Burlington House: one of those society occasions that I generally despised  - although on this occasion I had an end in view - and Watson loved. He looked appreciatively upon the female nudes – an undraped Diadumené (by Poynter) sporting the broad shoulders and muscular arms of a youth, and Mitchell’s Hypatia, a pale and dramatic waif with skeins of gold hair, a pronounced pectoralis major and a badly foreshortened foot, the toes like lumps of clay. Two female painters – of whom these days there appeared to be a plethora -  perpetrated rather more worthy forms: Merritt’s ‘Eve overcome by remorse’, and Rae’s posing Bacchante were at least more elegantly drawn in their nudity. I forgave him for his apparent interest when he remarked that if the female body were on display _in puris naturalibus_ then so should the male be in the interests of simple equity, before frowning and adding that he saw little difference between these female bodies exposed for sale and those of London’s youth, both being equally a disgrace.

From my point of view, I was interested to note that deferentially attached to the side of one or other of the younger members of the royal family was Mr Adam Worth, that noted connoisseur of fine paintings. Moran was nowhere to be seen, neither was their reptilian acquaintance, but Worth was in evidence, very much the gentleman. He dressed with a certain dandyish elegance with everything of the finest, although his broadcloth did not, to my mind disguise his brutality: he had the shoulders of a prize-fighter and the wrist of a Thuggee. He intrigued me very much, the more so as I began to investigate the substance behind the style. Lestrade had kindly put me in touch with Inspector Shore, a dour forty-seven year old with doubtful intelligence but a dull man’s dogged persistence. He was determined to catch Worth, but had been failing utterly to link him to specific crimes: for myself, I was convinced that the answer lay in Worth’s attachment to the seedier diamond purveyors of Antwerp. His association with Wynert would also, I thought bear more investigation.

‘ . . . enough?’ Watson’s voice broke in on my thoughts. ‘Have you seen enough, my dear fellow? You seem a little distrait. We can go if you wish.’

‘I am thinking, only. Pray go around and enjoy the art if you wish: I shall stand in this alcove and observe for a while. Go, Watson: Mr Millais has a painting here I believe.’

‘I prefer his earlier work; he is an establishment figure now. He deals too much in simpering children: sugar-candy and sanctimony.’

‘J – Watson! He is the world’s darling, and ever has been. You must not despise him: rumour has it that he is to be ennobled quite soon. A favourite of the Queen! Well then, Waterhouse’s Saint Eulalia. The composition is striking, you must agree.’

‘I prefer it to the Millais: it is more true in its depiction. But I have seen twelve-year-old children dying in the snow and I do not think it a subject for art. If every one of those matrons and gentlemen who now exclaim over its sweet pathos were to offer a guinea or two to the relief of London’s poor, or throw their weight behind our Criminal Law Amendment bill, I would be more pleased. But of course, the children we seek to protect are the undeserving poor, not mediaeval saints, and so do not merit it.’

‘Ever the reformer, ever the children’s champion.’ I looked around. ‘No, do not smile. I am serious, not bantering you. Your sensibility does you credit. Look: Henry Moore’s seascape over there is garnering some attention.’

‘It makes me long for a fresh breeze, but we cannot leave London at this moment.’

‘There is a new artist exhibiting today: Forbes, of Newlyn. His ‘Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach’ might suit you better. Its weather does not appear to be such as would make you desire the sea. But do go and look at something, Watson. I must observe, and cannot do it with you hovering at my shoulder.’

He sighed and wandered off in a lackadaisical fashion – perhaps I should ask him if he were suffering from digestive disturbances, I thought, for he was decidedly out of sorts - and I settled myself to watch the crowds. The entire _beau monde_ was there for a surety: people of whom I knew, but who would not know or recognise me in the street should we meet. We were not of a kind. The crowds eddied and parted, allowing glimpses of London’s finest. Gladstone was there, talking to Sir William Harcourt.  Worth had moved, and was now deep in discussion with William Agnew, the picture dealer under whose lax supervision the Gainsborough portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire had so regrettably been stolen some years ago. A stout, clean-shaven man, whose name I did not know joined them. He was in his late forties, soft, and luxuriously dressed in a coat with a collar of very fine astrakhan. His carroty, receding hair was brushed back from an intellectual forehead and keen grey eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles twinkled – a disagreeably knowing twinkle – as he glanced from one to other. An amiable smile at Worth, a nod, a brief exchange of comments, and he moved on. Millais, who was talking to du Maurier, turned and gave the man a deliberate stare: he smiled courteously, lifted his hat, and spoke a word or two, leaving the celebrated artist grim-faced. As he walked away, Millais said something to du Maurier, who shrugged, dismissive.

The crowd swirled again, and again new figures were before me: all the brightest and best of society. What secrets did they hide beneath their respectable cloth, I asked myself? In what respect were they vulnerable? Labouchère with his acknowledged mistress and bastard child – I  had noticed him earlier talking to Leighton. And what of Leighton: rumours had linked him with the late diarist, Henry Greville, and still an unmarried man, he kept around him a group of younger artists. What of Sir William Harcourt besieged last year by the Dublin Castle scandal, tainted by association with the likes of Cornwall and French, limping through a discredited administration; what of Gladstone, about whose forays into the London streets in search of fallen women to redeem, hard words were so frequently spoken; what of Millais, closely inspecting an Alma-Tadema: he, the picture of respectability, was yet not guiltless of intrigue, the scandal of his affair with Ruskin’s then wife now some years in the past, but not forgotten. What was in their pasts, these men of note, that might attract the predator? Secrets still? No, these men were open: all knew of their peccadilloes, and there was no scope for extortion there. My quarry, and therefore the blackmailer’s, would be the epitome of respectability, the secrets of his life not yet exposed.

The slow revolution of the crowd brought Wilde within earshot; Wilde, my now lauded and lionised age-mate at university. His young wife was, it was said, near her time with their first child, yet here he was at the exhibition, tall, striking, impeccably turned out, a lily in his buttonhole and a fair young man on his arm looking up at him with an expression of fatuous adoration. ‘Adrian, my dear fellow, do come and look at this: it is perfectly hideous. No great artist ever sees things as they really are: if he did he would cease to be an artist.’ His every witty utterance was applauded. An appreciative crowd - among whom was the doctor, Sir Morell Mackenzie, a kind and close friend to Wilde and his delicate little wife - hung on his every word. Yet I trembled for Wilde’s exposure of himself when I saw how tenderly he pressed his friend’s arm, how their glances one at the other hinted at a closeness beyond other companionship. Did men not see who he was? Did they not see the strangeness in him? Perhaps it was only I who saw it, being attuned to such things in myself. Perhaps no-one else noticed.

‘Holmes?’ It was Watson, returning to my side. I put out a hand to grasp his before I realised it, snatched it back, and rose to my feet wincing, for my stitches pulled and stung. ‘Sir Henry, may I introduce my friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes, to you?

I spent the rest of our sojourn at Burlington House discussing cremation as a method of disposing of bodies – he favoured it, as more final and complete; I as a consulting detective preferred the long, slow decay of burial, which at least allowed for post-mortem exhumation in case of uncertainty or challenge – with Sir Henry Thompson, a surgeon of some renown and, it appeared, an old acquaintance of Watson’s. The conversation added salt to an otherwise tedious repast of art, for I had not, exactly, found what I sought. It was true that Lestrade had only drawn my attention to the issues of blackmail in high society: he had not asked me to determine where there were victims. But the chase intrigued me: a secret surveillance over a secret crime. I would find it out if the power lay in me. I would discover it: lifting the veils and bringing the monstrous thing into the light of day. I saw nothing as yet, but I would.

*****

There was no war with Russia: on that very day we had attended Burlington House, Mr Gladstone was put in possession of information that enabled a settlement to be made which satisfied both parties. Abdur Rahman Khan, the warrior Amir of Afghanistan acted the diplomat, not, I suppose, wanting two great powers at war within his country. The Russians were asked to retreat from Zulfikar; the British were inclined to agree that the Tsar should keep Panjdeh and since neither quarrelsome party could afford the expense of a war, all seemed set fair for an agreement. Watson, it appeared, was safe from recall – or worse, a voluntary return - for a time.

I was busy. A slew of small cases: minor murders, erring husbands, distraught wives, occupied my May. Watson was busier. He was working earnestly – no man more earnestly - with other concerned physicians, to bring about the successful passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill. No-one who walked the streets of London could doubt the shocking state of affairs there: children of both sexes bought and sold into prostitution. One could not pass a street corner in St Giles, or Whitechapel without being accosted by, or on behalf of, some wretched girl or boy with hopeless eyes and a painted smile. Those that we could, those of our little household, Watson and I protected: I daresay half the good doctor’s disposable income went on one charity or another. We found work, Mrs Hudson provided clothing: where we could, we took them out of that poverty which led them into danger. But we could do so little – and they were so young, it being no crime for a grown man to couple with some wretched thirteen year old too young to carry, and too unformed to bear a child. Watson and his peers hoped to raise that limit of illegality to sixteen at least. They felt that although they had little hope of stopping the abuse without some great and permanent change in the attitude of the Government towards the poor in general and girls in particular, the prospect, at least, of a penalty might prove a deterrent.

But still the Bill languished. It had been in committee for three years now, Watson told me, pacing our rooms like a tiger. ‘Three years, and there is still no appetite to pass it. It is shameful, shameful in this day and age and in a Christian nation. How can we call ourselves enlightened, and seek to impose our manners and morals on those we call savages? Even Rome was not so bad!’

‘I thought the Lords approved it last year: what happened then.’

‘Oh, that was two years ago. The Commons would not accept it. Last year it failed in the aftermath of the Reform Bill: so much was at stake over the extension of the franchise, that it was not deemed important. Dalhousie reintroduced it into the Lords in April, Harcourt has been pushing for it: the societies for the suppression of vice plead for it, yet here we are with Whit week almost upon us, the House rising for recess, and still it is not passed. Mr Scott and Mrs Butler are in despair.’

‘This is Mr Benjamin Scott of the Gospel Purity Association? He that was involved in the prosecution of Mary Jeffries for keeping a disorderly house in Chelsea? She pleaded guilty and was fined only last week, was she not?’

‘Aye, and a shameful proceeding that was also; it is not that her house is disorderly for it is very well run. A man may go there to satisfy whatever vice he has, and some of those who do are very highly placed indeed. The case was hurried through the courts at all speed, with the learned judge sweating on the bench for fear that noble names would be revealed as frequenters of her damn brothel. The old wretch pleaded guilty, was ably defended by Montague Williams, and was set a fine which she will need only to apply to one of her titled patrons to pay. But there will be no justice for her unfortunate girls. It is a travesty entirely.’

‘My Watson is turning Puritan, I perceive.’ I was trying to lighten his mood, but might as well have applied a match to a gunpowder trail.

‘I am no Puritan, damn you, Holmes. For my part a man may frig or swive or bugger his way into his grave or Hell or whichever takes him first: I care not for the cant of Christianity. He may do anything he choose so he does it with a consenting partner and gets no woman with child against her will. If he have a letch to be whipped or sodomised, I care naught for it, so that the girl who lays on the birch or the boy who fucks him be doing it of their own will, not caught or coerced or taken innocent from the country and drugged with black drowse to their ruin.’ He slammed his fist on the table and a glass fell over and smashed, whereat he cursed again, and gathered it up with shaking hands. ‘Now see what I have done. Forgive me, Holmes, I am in an evil mood. I should not use such language to you; it is more fitted for the barrack than the drawing room, and God knows I deprecated it in the barrack also.’

‘And you have cut your hand, give that here to me, and wash yourself: I will find gauze and plaster and bind it for you. You must forgive me in your turn: my jest was ill-timed. This afternoon we will go to the Turkish bath, and have your evil mood sweated and pummelled out of you.’

‘Perhaps you are right and that will help restore me.’ He deposited the glass into the newspaper I held out for it, and went to the bathroom. ‘I do not know what it is with me, Holmes, at the moment. My nerves are all a-stretch, my temper on a hair trigger.’ I heard the water run, then he returned, wiping his hands. ‘I must be the very devil to live with: I do not know how you can bear me in the house, for I can hardly bear myself. I am all fret and fidget and womanish worries.’

‘The prospect of war has disturbed you: you have slept badly of late. It awakens memories that are hard and bloody. How many times have I woken you from nightmare this month? You have not dreamed like this for a year or more, but the talk of this war, in the place where once you fought, the thought of having to, of forcing yourself to return – it weighs on you, Watson; do not seek to deny it. Be a little kind to yourself, my dear Pythias,’ I took the hand he stretched out to me, and wrapped it, securing the gauze with a plaster. ‘There, it is only a small cut. And you are no harder than I to live with: we are well matched in that.’

‘I am a fortunate man to have you to understand me, Holmes. Many would call me a coward.’ His voice was so low, and so pained, my heart went out to him. ‘A wretched, puling coward, to dream and sweat, and wake up in tears, all because of the prospect of combat. I thought I was over it, but no, the merest hint of war and my terrors come again. Where is my spirit? Where my courage?’

‘Will you sit with me?’ I tugged him by the hand to the sofa. ‘We have been much apart of late, I with my cases, you with the campaigning. Sit near me, John. We both need the comfort. I confess, I am cold and cheerless today, and you are sad. As for you: there are too many who suffer this problem, and the weakness after, the dreams, and the sweats, the galloping pulse and shortness of breath. It is an effect of war, and one that many doctors now recognise. They even give a name to it: Soldier’s Heart. I know this, you know it, and you have said to me before, I recollect, that your advice to any sufferer would be that he should be kind to himself. So let us be kind. We will sit here quietly for a while, then we shall go to the bath, and sweat the bad humours out of you. We shall dine – a Dover sole, perhaps - this evening we shall read – your French is coming along splendidly now – and I shall play for you until you sleep. You will have a better night, and wake with more strength for your campaign. You do not lack courage, believe me.’

‘Yes.’ He leaned back. ‘Holmes – Sherlock . . . may I . . .’

‘John.’ I went willingly as he guided my head to rest on his shoulder. His arms closed about me, warm, strong. ‘Yes.’

‘Damon,’ he murmured, smoothing my hair. His lips touched my brow, and I shut my eyes. ‘Oh, my dear. My dear friend. Thank you.’

*****

‘Well, Stead has done it now, and no mistake.’ Watson offered me the Pall Mall Gazette, and I put my pipette down to take it. ‘Will you look at this? Or no, I believe your oil of vitriol over there is eating into the table: perhaps you should deal with that first, before it drips onto our bearskin rug.’

‘Read it to me?’ I busied myself tidying up the mess. ‘I do not know how it is already so late: the day has flown. Have you been with Mrs Butler and Burns-Gibson for all of it? How goes the campaign?’

Much had happened since the delay to the Criminal Law Amendment Bill in May. The House had, as Watson had predicted, risen for the Whitsun recess without going any further with it. Gladstone’s ailing administration had fallen in June (it had failed to agree a budget) and a caretaker government led by the Tory Lord Salisbury was attempting to deal with the fiscal and political muddle the Liberals had ended up in. So the Bill still languished, and its reformers were becoming increasingly impatient.

The diminishing prospect of war had eased Watson’s nerves a little, and after a course of Turkish baths, some interesting cases, and some attention on my part to feeding him a generous diet of music and light reading, the nightmares were retreating, and his health improving again. On several occasions when the dreams had been particularly bad I had rolled myself in an eiderdown and shared his bed, lying back to back with him for the comfort, and the solidity of another human body to reassure him that he was not alone. If I had had to quell my unruly phallus with a little extra cocaine – I discovered that although its excitatory function made my fantasies deliriously sensual, the physical effects rendered achieving a state in which I might have fulfilled them impossible – I considered it a small price to pay for his sleep, and the terrifying pleasure of being able to observe him sleeping. If his dreams were strange, I am sure mine were stranger, but I never gave them voice.

‘What has Stead done now? I was dubious when your group involved him; he is a rabble-rousing demagogue in the William O’Brien and Labouchère vein. I warned you no good would come of it.’

‘You were right, and I should have listened.’ He took a deep breath. ‘ “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,”’ he intoned.

‘What?’ I finished wiping up the acid and threw the rag in the fireplace. ‘What in heaven’s name is he about?’

‘That is the title of his article. He promises his readers several of them. The - ’

‘But why Babylon?’ I asked. ‘Surely the maiden tribute of modern Crete would be more accurate, would it not, since it was Minos _‘qui juge aux enfers tous les pâles humains’_ who demanded tribute from Athens. I suppose London could be Athens, but why not say so? Why drag Babylon into it? And to be precise, it was not only maidens, for there were youths as well, seven of each from Athens, if I recall correctly. And that only every seven years, whereas if it is London to which he refers there are new tributes every seven minutes, I should imagine. Unless of course he means to refer to the Babylonian story of Daniel, and Nebuchadnezzar throwing Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego into the blazing fiery furnace. No, it cannot be: that was not so much a tribute as punishment. The tributes to Moloch? No, it cannot be a Biblical reference: he must intend a Classical allusion, but it is poorly done. What a strange thing for him to choose as a title: I do not in the least see that it can be accurate. I - ’

‘Holmes, do be serious.’ He sighed, but his eyes were amused. ‘No, I perceive that you are being serious, but pray, my dear fellow, do not fix your mind on the title, for that is a mere trifling issue compared to what is at stake here. I daresay Stead did not think at all other than to have a high-sounding and impressive headline. I am sure he is neither a classical scholar nor a seeker after truth and accuracy, when there is good press to be had. Will you sit down, my dear and listen to me a little? I really do not know what to do for the best here.’

William Stead had, it transpired over the next few days, lost patience with the moderate methods of the reformers, and with some more active colleagues, half persuaded, and half persuading, had embarked upon a course of muck-raking to make his point. He began his campaign with a warning to his readers in the Pall Mall Gazette about the heinous consequences of not passing the damn bill, going on to promise a detailed exposé of the ramifications of prostitution in London.

‘It is just sensational journalism,’ I pointed out to Watson, handing back the paper. ‘I take it you did not know about any of this?’

‘I knew that Mrs Butler had involved Stead, but not that he had involved Bramwell Booth and the Salvation Army. I certainly did not know about this child they call ‘Lily’ whom Stead bought, had examined as to her virginity, and chloroformed so that he might simulate the rape of a virgin for the purposes of journalism, and that act is of all things most abhorrent to me, as it must be to any right-thinking man. To put a child through such torment is indefensible; she is not a performing animal. No end can justify such means.’

‘Stead bought her? Procured her himself? Did he indeed do so? Then I agree it is indefensible. Where is the child now?’

‘Mrs Butler assures me she is safe, and in France with a Salvationist family. But the fact remains, that venal inebriate as her mother may have been to sell her for five pounds, she has been reft away from all she knew for a purpose to which she could not consent. I have been told – and I believe it – that having had her virginity certified, Stead had her taken to a house of ill-fame – he employed a woman named Rebecca Jarrett to do, it, a prostitute once -  where she was chloroformed, and put to bed. He then entered her room and woke her, thus proving to himself, I suppose that he might do what he would with her.’

‘That is shameful, Watson.’

‘I know, especially since he reports this event as having been done by another man: he does not even own to it as his own act. I cannot think, as I said, that the ends justify the means. I understand that he wants, we all want, the bill to go ahead, and there are too many who oppose it for whatever vile reason, but I still do not think the way he has gone about it is right. He will whip people into a lather of prurient indignation, but when it is died down, what will have changed?’

‘Not the inhumanity of man to man, that is for certain. So what do you do now?’

‘I shall confine my participation strictly to speaking on behalf of an increased age of consent, and on going through those parliamentary channels that are open to me. I am a person of no importance, but every eminent person I meet in the hospital, every surgeon or professor I encounter who might have the ear of a government minister, I invite to join me in the free ward and to look at the ravages of disease in our youngest children. I speak when invited, which is not often, and I write letters, as you know. But I will have nothing more to do with Stead, nor with Scott, nor with Mrs Butler. If that is Christian practice, I want none of it. They sicken me, these crusading journalists. Government by sensational news: it is as vile as the ill it purports to remedy. Oh Holmes, murder seems clean by comparison with this, and honest financial fraud more laudable than this, this - ’

‘ – sly chicanery,’ I supplied, ‘Watson, put that rag down, get your hat, and let us go. You are not at the hospital today: we will go a-wandering, and take our meal where we find it, but let us get out of the city for the day. Or let us go to Sussex for a few days? You are tired and stale, and you have not been well. I have done nothing but work for the last five weeks, and London is filthy in July. Let us shut up shop here, send Mrs Hudson and Janey away for a holiday, leave the lads well provided for, and go to the sea. A week’s bathing and walking will set you up and make you feel more yourself.’

‘I do not know if I should go . . .’ His tone told me he wanted to. ‘Should I not stay and fight?’

‘No man can fight for ever: he must put the burden down before shouldering it again with renewed strength. We do not know what we will have to face in the future, and this fight may be a protracted one. Let the events Stead has set in motion unfold; stay back until you see a clear course.’

‘You are right of course. You so often are, Holmes.’

‘I am often not,’ I said, patting him on the shoulder. ‘But in this case I am, yes.’

*****

We passed a halcyon fortnight. We rented the same cottage as Watson had taken me to before, when I was melancholic. The weather smiled on us, and we bathed and walked and read every day. I chose not to have a housekeeper in, so we managed for ourselves like two boys camping, and if the toast was burnt, often, the eggs over-hard, and the bacon over-crisp, I really did not mind it. Watson had long expressed a desire to learn to ride a bicycle – something I certainly had no wish to do – so at considerable expense I ordered a new safety model, and had it expressed down. His delighted face when he saw it was my reward, as was the great amusement I derived from reclining in a hammock watching him attempt to steer it over the bumpy paths. I believe he did not fall more than a dozen or so times – and nothing was broken but a few wheel-spokes, which he proudly mended himself. His skin grew golden in the sun, beef, good bread, and brown ale restored the flesh he had lost in London, and swimming in the clean Channel sea toned us both up. (He wondered that I put on no flesh with the good food: I believe I fretted it all away in pining after him like some fool.) On some days, we hired horses and made longer expeditions: he rode like a military man, while I preferred the hunting seat, but he was a fine sight on a horse. Surfeited with sun, clean air and our exercise, he fell asleep like a babe.

His dreams did not seem to trouble him: mine tormented me with memories of his strong thighs in riding breeches, his capable hands on the reins, the curve of his mouth as he laughed. His naked flesh might brush mine as we swam together, but my cocaine solution, which I had strengthened slightly to five per-cent as a precaution, kept my body quiescent, if not my mind. Sometimes I wondered that it had been of such long duration, this unrequited love of mine: it was an old companion to me and a most constant one, a settled familiar, always at my shoulder. Perhaps the issue was not that my love was unrequited – he cared for me a great deal, so much was plain to see. And if his affection was milk that nourished, rather than wine that intoxicated, who was I to beg for more? I might have been sipping friendship’s water, or dying of an intolerable thirst. Instead my love was fed innocently enough. It was my desire that languished, starving.

We did not keep abreast of the events in London in detail, but confined ourselves to such news as was relayed (in suitably horrified tones) by the local papers. The wretched Gazette had set the world by its ears. W.H. Smith’s had refused to stock it, yet undeterred by its unavailability on the news stalls, people besieged the offices of the paper for new revelations. The telegraph boys and members of the Salvation Army who disseminated it were intercepted in the streets as they carried it to and fro, and offered ridiculous multiples of its price for one copy. It was mentioned in parliamentary business. Stead was cried out upon for a purveyor of obscene materials and threatened with prosecution, investigations were begun into the case of ‘Lily’, and Sir William Harcourt pleaded with the editors to cease publication, lest there be rioting in London.

There were, in fact, no riots, but there were marches demanding the government act to stop the shameful exploitation of youth. Watson frowned, one evening, over the report of one, but then smiled sardonically at it. When I enquired why, he told me that he very much doubted whether the wagon-loads of white-robed virgins pleading hysterically in Hyde Park for the passage of the Bill were genuine. ‘And if they are, they will not be for long if they spend much time in that place. I should not smile: I am not amused. I have not read Stead’s reports: the reports of his ‘Secret Commission as he calls it, but I know what is in them. And that there was no commissioned body but he himself and a few friends. I detest such pompous falsity: that a man should lie, and lie unashamed, as if there be virtue in it an it be to further a good cause. And now Labouchère must needs have his say also.’

‘And what says he, our tender-hearted friend?’

‘Oh, he is stirring the pot by railing against the dilatory nature of the Commons, that they have not passed the Bill already. And he has a strange, perverse, half childish love of causing mischief, which he is by no means inclined to restrain. He does not oppose Stead, but their newspapers are rivals, therefore he would rather it were his vision, not Stead’s that should prevail, simply for the glory of it.’

‘This is nothing: is there more? Mere railing cannot achieve much.’

‘He has moved several amendments now, which are tending to have the opposite effects to those we want. We are struggling to raise the age of consent from twelve for girls: we have forced it up by little and little – every wretched year has been debated from thirteen to fourteen to fifteen  - to sixteen, which at least affords some protection to the abused young.  For Labouchère to attempt to raise it to twenty-one, or even eighteen, is an act of folly at this time: let us get this far and get the damn bill passed, and then work from there. Rome was not built in a day. And at the same time as he does this he rants in parliament at the Bill itself being a license to any woman who wishes to blackmail a man, saying that all she needs to do is cry rape, and the deed is done. He has an unwholesome desire to meddle: I cannot think why I once respected him.’

‘Labouchère is a hypocrite. I detest him. And I thought we were Babylon, not Rome.’

‘Babylon, Rome, Nineveh, Tyre, what boots it to anatomize this city’s iniquities? My fine gentlemen in Parliament are mortally afraid of being blackmailed; to every effort to offer protection to the wretched children they debauch, they oppose the looming spectre of honest boys and men wronged by malicious accusation from women bent on extortion.’

‘They would sooner have many children wronged than one man, it appears.’

‘Indeed. And because our legislators’ daughters are protected safe at home, and allowed no license but confined within familial bonds until they come to years of majority, they can feel, the majority of those men, that men’s daughters who are not so protected are an entirely different species. The children of the poor are on the streets from an early age: they learn of matters of the body early, they practice them early, and thus they are not so worthy of protection, because they have already lost some essential innocence. Still at least it appears that the bill will receive assent – in whatever form – before Parliament is prorogued for the summer -  even if Cavendish-Bentinck and his cohort are desperately trying to protect themselves. One wonders what is in their pasts that they fear blackmail so much. Surely if a man lives an honest life there is nothing of which he need be ashamed?’

‘Indeed, Watson, there should not be. But those in power – is it not said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely – have many secrets, as witness the prevalence of blackmail. It is not surprising they wish to protect themselves. Tell me this, my dear fellow, if you will let us leave politics for a moment. Our term of leisure here draws to its close: is there anything we have not done that you wish to do? We must leave on Monday.’

‘Then let tomorrow be a halcyon day, Holmes. A quiet Sunday, to remember when we are back in the hurly-burly of London. I shall clean my bicycle. We could swim, for there will not be time the following morning. I would like us to sit and read. For you to play to me. For us to sit together quietly. And for this evening, now, the moon is nearing its full: perhaps we could take a late stroll under it before we read?’

‘I concur entirely, my dear Watson. You could not have chosen a day’s programme more congenial to me. So tomorrow is fixed.  Shall we continue this evening with Dumas? We approach its conclusion, you know.’

‘I am more of a mind for poetry. I love our Dumas, but not when the moon is full. There is too much revenge in him, and not enough romance.’

‘Hafiz, then, among the nightingales. His ghazals are exquisite. Or Khayyam: _“here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough, a flask of wine, a book of verse and thou beside me singing in the wilderness . .”’_

‘ . . . “ _and wilderness were paradise enow.”_ I love the Rubaiyat. Pour the wine, Holmes.’ He took my hand and looked into my eyes, his own soft and mischievous. _“Ah, my beloved, fill the cup that clears today of past regrets and future fears . . .”’_

‘ _“Tomorrow, why, tomorrow I may be myself with yesterday’s seven thousand years.”_ What are you about tonight, John? You look – elated, excited. I have never seen you like this.’

He sighed, sobering. ‘A flight of fancy perhaps. Nothing, I do not know. I am foolish, I think. Sentimental, certainly. Some longing moves me; I know not what for.  Just – Sherlock, let us forget, tonight about  politics and philosophy and government and greed, and just be two dear friends together. Perhaps it is the moon that afflicts me.’ He left me, moved to the window, and drew the curtain.  ‘See, she rises. “ _Queen and huntress, chaste and fair, now the sun is laid to sleep, seated in thy silver chair, state in wonted manner keep . . .”’_

‘ _“Hesperus entreats thy light,”’_ I joined him at the window and clasped his hand again, ‘ “ _Goddess excellently bright.”_ Are you feverish? Your hand is cool, so I do not think you are. _“The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact.”_ It is the writer in you, perhaps, that makes you feverish.’

‘Restless, not feverish. Restless. I feel – oh, I do not know how I feel: we are not supposed to have feelings after all. I want – tonight I want very much not to be John Watson, perhaps, very much not a staid gentleman, a defeated soldier, an aspiring writer, a doctor. I would I were a boy again, unspoiled and unbroken, wild, full of possibility once more. It is the moon: her quicksilver runs bright in my veins tonight, and it seems I cannot tame it. But I must, I suppose. One cannot run moon-mad in these sad days; we are not boys in Arcadia, but men of Victoria’s reign.’

‘I – I would we were in Arcadia, John.’ I leaned into him, and his arm came round my waist, holding it strongly.

‘You are the d - the nearest creature on God’s green earth to me,’ he said, his voice low. ‘Never was a man so fortunate as I am, to be your friend. There. I have said it, and now you will think me sentimental.’

‘No. I – I am not good with words. But you are dear to me too.’

I felt him shiver a little and then sigh. ‘We had better walk, perhaps, Sherlock, or I shall become increasingly sentimental. “ _It is the very error of the moon. She comes more nearer earth than she is wont, and makes men mad.”_ Forgive me my flights of fancy: ascribe it to my being a writer, if you please, and to the influence of the moon.’

‘I would forgive you more than a flight of fancy.’ My mouth was dry, my heart pounding – almost I could believe that he – that he, perhaps did not care for me in so very different a fashion as I cared for him. Perhaps after all there was some hope, but I could not risk it yet. Perhaps if – if – he – perhaps he could be persuaded to care. ‘I could forgive you anything.’

‘I do not deserve that.’ He turned, and embraced me briefly – too briefly. ‘Let us walk now. I shall exercise the wildness from my veins, and tomorrow I shall be sober Dr Watson once more.’

‘Do not be too sober,’ I said to him as we set off. ‘I – I rather like you in this moon-mad mood. It becomes you well, John.

‘It would not suit for every day,’ said he, ever the practical man. ‘But perhaps you would not mind so very much if I let it out to play on occasions.’

*****

We had no sooner returned to London, than I was summoned by Lestrade. I went to the Yard alone, since Watson was at the hospital, and it was as well I did, for it meant we could speak freely together.

‘I have been summoned by your brother,’ he told me. His mouth twisted in a wry grin, but he was not angry. ‘Of course, I did not let him know that I knew he was your brother, since he did not choose to introduce himself as such. In fact he did not introduce himself at all, merely observed me from a great height and remarked that I had proved myself a man of integrity in the affair a year ago, and so could be entrusted to be involved with another delicate mission.’

‘I am sorry, Lestrade,’ I said, ‘He is a – well, I am afraid he is a - ’

‘He is a man unlike other men,’ he told me, kindly. ‘I would take a deal more offence than that, Mr Holmes, for what you have done for me and mine. Polly is going on finely now, and thanks to your lad staying with us, my poor wife is less harried at home. It is amazing what a little help has done for her temper, bless her. I have much to be thankful for. I can tolerate your older brother, especially since, as I said to you, I have one of my own. In any case, your brother wished to consult me about a case, and I have agreed with him that you are the person to handle it. But you must go to Vienna for it, I am afraid – that is another reason for asking you to take on the case, since I cannot spare the man-power.

‘I will not go without Watson; he is quite invaluable to me.’

‘Dr Watson’s presence is provided for, in fact it is desirable, since it will give cover to your visit: there are many medical advances, I am told, that are coming out of Germany and that he could be interested in.’

‘Very well: then what is the case?’

‘The Prime Minister is being blackmailed.’

‘Well it is not the first time, Lestrade, and I daresay it will not be the last. When was it that there was blackmail levied against him? In 53, was it not: that poor wretched fellow Wilson, who saw him conversing with a prostitute by Leicester Square? I believe the man received a year’s hard labour for his pains, and Gladstone was acquitted of wrongdoing. We know well that our revered leader has always consorted with prostitutes: there is nothing new about that.’

‘It is only three years ago that Tottenham saw him talking to a prostitute and raised the issue in the house,’ Lestrade agreed. ‘A member of Gladstone’s opposition; a Conservative member. He was fortunate that there was no evidence to bring a case that time. His ministers have begged him to desist, since for all he says that it is his sole purpose to reform these unfortunate women, others doubt him. Even I cannot think that is truly the case. He continues to touch pitch, and pitch defiles.’

‘So what is the case this time? And where is the Prime Minister now?’

‘During the summer? He is at Hawarden, cutting down trees: his favourite pastime. It is the case of this man Boydell, who has been writing threatening letters. It appears that there is no substance behind them, but it is important to make sure. The Prime Minister has, I am sorry to say, been completely intransigent, and continues to consort with these fallen women against both Rosebery’s advice, and his secretary, Hamilton’s. He lays himself open to these attempts.’

‘And must we find the man?’

‘No, only converse with him; he is already in custody in Vienna. The thing is, it is not just that he has threatened blackmail, it is also that he represents himself as a Fenian, and has issued death threats against the Prime Minister - and you having being involved with the Fenian issue, it was thought that you could perhaps determine whether there is a real connexion or whether this is just fantasy on his part. It appears already that he is not entirely sensible, and the Prime Minister is anxious that if he is not in his right mind, the full rigour of the law should not be deployed against him.’

‘Or the Prime Minister does not wish the matter to come to trial for fear of exposure. The Dublin Castle Scandal has put the fear of God into many, I think. Time was when all a gentleman had to say was that the person accusing him was mistaken or lying, and the charge would fall.’

‘Would you have us go back to that time again, Mr Holmes?’

‘By no means, Lestrade. I would have one law for the rich and the poor, and it applied equally, as would you. But as far as the ‘People’s William’ is concerned, who knows what he has been about? He has a long history of consorting with women of the night: who knows whether he has fallen or not?  Well, I will take your case, but I must telegraph to Watson and tell him that we are off again on our travels.’

‘Is he at Barts? I shall send a messenger round to him directly for you, Mr Holmes. And I am able to inform you that you have passage on the Orient Express on Monday: the tickets will be delivered to Baker Street, as will the documents in the case for your perusal.’

I shook his hand and thanked him. ‘You do not much mind this, Lestrade? That you are directed to employ me? I would not have you made a mere messenger boy: that would not be right.’

‘I do not much mind it now,’ he said. His smile was an inward thing, slow, and reflective. ‘I am an ordinary Inspector, nothing more, but if I am occasionally selected to be a mover against political or hidden crimes, I daresay I can compass it, so only that they do not involve shoring up the state when it is at fault, or conniving at illegality. My work is changing: more particularly so since we began to employ you, Mr Holmes. And I’m not saying it’s the worse for it. Or for you.’

‘Or for Dr Watson,’ I said.

‘One would not think of one of you without the other, Sir. It’s good to see how he has recovered, poor man, from how he was when you first introduced us. And he’s rare fond of you: he was quite downcast and forlorn when you were away in Amsterdam. Not a smile could anyone get from him, save for Polly. Bless him, he is a kindly gentleman. And a gentle man with the children if you take my meaning.’

‘One of the best,’ I agreed. ‘Well, I will take my leave of you, Lestrade, and thank you for your kindness.’

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Not at all, Mr Holmes.’

Watson was successfully inveigled away from his work – and from the Criminal Law Amendment Bill. Parliament was to be prorogued on the tenth of August, and the discussions and changes, not just to that Bill, but to the other business of the house were furiously debated and as furiously reported on. Watson had already lost the tranquillity he had found during our weeks in Sussex, and I was not sorry for an excuse to take him away. He was unwilling to let me go to Vienna alone, so it did not take very much persuasion. There was nothing he could do in any case, for he had no parliamentary influence, and all his work – in writing letters, observing and documenting cases and providing information for people such as Stead and Mrs Butler had been done. It was the wait for his poor children that was wearing him out, and the uncertainty over what might become of them.

So I took him away from it, thanking Mycroft wholeheartedly, and we travelled leisurely and in comfort to Paris, arriving early on the Monday morning and transferring there to the Express d’Orient for Vienna. Watson was as excited as a small boy as he boarded the train, and I could not repress a certain thrill myself at the power of the vehicle, the speed of travel, the luxury of our snug compartment with its neat fittings and the sensation that, despite this being a strictly business excursion, that we were on a holiday together. The charm of the whole event was undeniable: I could even spare a pious thought for Mr Gladstone, whose indiscretions had given us this chance.

However great my own excitement, I tried to maintain an unperturbed façade – one does not wish to appear entirely provincial after all - but it was difficult with Watson bubbling over with enthusiasm at every turn of the wheel. ‘Is not this ingenious?’ he commented, and ‘Look, Holmes, is not this cleverly done? It is fascinating how so much is fitted and dovetailed into so little space? And all is so beautifully appointed: I have never seen anything like it.’

‘It is,’ I said, unable to repress a smile. ‘Watson, you remind me very much of a small boy at Christmas. Had I known that it would please you so much to travel like this I would have suggested it before.’

‘Oh, we could not do it without your friend in government,’ he said. ‘I daresay the price is shocking. No, no, I do not expect to travel like this again in my life: it is enough to do it once. What time do we dine, Holmes?’

‘At seven-thirty, during which time the steward will make up these seats into sleeping couches. Perhaps we might sit beforehand and look at these papers? I would welcome your opinion.’

‘Of course, by all means show me. Hmm, I do not think – there is a certain discontinuity in the writing here, Holmes. This person was writing either in a disjointed frame of mind, or under the influence of drug or alcohol. What do we know about him?’

‘Charles Harry Boydell, twenty-five, born in London, and of no fixed abode, claiming to be a gentleman. Arrested on suspicion of being about to abscond without paying his hotel bill, and property found in his possession that linked him to the sending of two threatening letters to Mr Gladstone dated March 20th and April 18th, as well as other letters to women both of his acquaintance and unknown to him. There are two issues here; the death threats, for he claims to be a Fenian, and the threatening to expose secrets. We are to determine whether he is, in fact, a Fenian – an objective I can attain by testing him with some of their secret signs and passwords - in which case he will be returned to England for trial, or merely a blackmailer, in which case, my government acquaintance directs that Mr Gladstone does not wish for a heavy penalty, but that leniency should be applied.’

‘Mr Gladstone does not wish for a heavy penalty? Against a blackmailer?’ Watson’s snort of derision was almost comic. ‘And what, pray, does that tell you about Mr Gladstone?’

‘It argues either that he is a man of great charity, Watson, or that he has sinned sufficiently, and sufficiently often to be unsure whether this man has cause for blackmail, and not to want it to go to proof. For all we know, this man, Boydell may be another Jack Saul, or Malcolm Johnstone, although I have never heard of Gladstone that he affected the Greek vice.’

‘Greek, but not vice,’ he returned quickly, his brow furrowed. ‘Do not call it vice, Holmes. It – it wounds me to hear so many condemned for what harms no-one, and is not anything they may help. If you had read the authors I had, you would know it is not a willed choice. A man is born like that or he is not, that is all. And no, I have not heard that of Gladstone, either. It is women he prefers, or so one hears.’

‘Myself, I do not know that he has sinned sufficiently to be blackmailed.’ I told him. ‘Shinwell Johnson says that the girls call him ‘Mr Glad-eyes’ and ‘Daddy Do-Nothing.’ But he may have been tempted enough to have a very guilty conscience for all of that.’

‘The more shame to him then. Well I shall examine the man and give you my opinion as a doctor, if he be sane or no, and then we shall see if he be a Fenian.’

‘Very well, then let us dress for dinner then: I want to see you _point-device_ this evening Watson. We will be in good company I think, and must live up to it. Come, make haste, we have ten minutes only.’

‘Good company, but not the best,’ he said, removing his jacket, and hauling his shirt over his head in one swift movement. He moved to the toilet cabinet, and poured water, then took one of the linen towels, wetted it and wiped face, neck, arms and torso. ‘There: a cat’s lick and a promise, as we were used to say. The rest will have to wait until we return. The best company is that which one cares for most, Holmes.’ He drained the sink, wiped it, and poured again. ‘Your turn. Do be quick. Where the devil are my clean shirts? I have lost my tie – oh there it is. And now I cannot find my collar stud. You are still too thin, Holmes. I cannot think why you did not put on healthy flesh in Sussex. We shall look at your diet when we return, I believe.’

I had followed his example, and was now buttoning my own shirt. ‘Your collar studs and cuff links are in my marquetry box, pray stop disarranging our valises so.’ I ran the comb through my hair. ‘I have not had time to shave again: how I hate it when I am not clean-shaven. You lose those studs every time I do not take charge of them.’ I had beaten him in dressing – I prided myself on my quick changes – and tapped him on the shoulder as he fumbled the stud. ‘Give it to me and I shall put it in; you are hopeless when it comes to speed. I cannot think why an army man does not do better. There, will that do? Will I do?

‘You are a thing of beauty and a joy for ever,’ he said, his face alight with laughter, ‘and as vain as a peacock into the bargain. Of course it will do, but were you even in rags, my friend, I should be proud to dine with Sherlock Holmes.’

The dinner was ridiculously grand – oysters, clear soup with perles du Japon, a turbot in green sauce, filet of beef and a stuffed capon, a savoury of cheese and anchovies, and an iced chocolate pudding, all with good wines. With Watson’s eye upon me I ate more than I would usually, and knew I would regret it later. We sat late and sipped liqueurs – a Chartreuse heavy and golden as honey, prickling the tongue with the sharp bite of bitter herbs; and Watson forbade me coffee, ordering us instead a tisane of anise and lime flower ‘to rest you, Holmes. You look tired. I want you to sleep well tonight.’

‘I was going to take a dose of cocaine and work a little,’ I protested as we made our way down the swaying corridor.

‘Try to sleep,’ he said. He ushered me into our compartment. ‘You will be the better for it, and you have not slept well since we returned. Come, give up your dose and your work to please me tonight. See how neatly all of this is done: I am amazed. Will you take the top or bottom bunk, Holmes?’

‘The top. If you dream badly, and try to walk, you might fall.’

We stripped and changed, moving around each other with care in the confined space. He washed meticulously all over, as he always did, calling the steward for fresh hot water, and then again for more for me. At length we were in our nightshirts. It was strange, but having to be so close to him, I felt curiously shy, and could not at all look him in the eye. We had shared a room before, but never one so small: his presence, his scent, he himself – filled the room. I wanted – I did not know what I wanted, to kiss and cling, be fond and familiar or to share myself with him, let gentleness turn to lust. Either would have seemed more natural than the brief, brotherly embrace he gave me, before I climbed the ladder and slid myself between smooth, lavender-scented sheets. And long after he was asleep, I lay awake, counting his quiet breaths, listening to them deepen and rumble into a snore until I too succumbed to their rhythm and drifted into dreams.

The morning saw us up early and into the breakfast car. We had a whole day to while away, and another night, for the train arrived in Vienna at eleven pm, and we would sleep there until the morning. I reflected, as we passed through the glorious scenery – picturesque castles, positively Gothic ravines, and silver rivers leaping down mountains to wind through tucked-away valleys, how strange this journey was: a time almost out of time, suspended, dreamlike. We were quite cocooned in our ignorance; would get no news until the Wednesday morning, when we disembarked at Vienna. The world ran on without us while we voyaged through it.

I said as much to Watson, soon after the lunch we had had served in our compartment. It was Watson who requested that: I would have gone to the dining car to observe humanity feeding, but he asked quietly that we should stay. Several times that afternoon, as we dozed and read, and chatted over the Boydell papers, or dozed again while the telegraph wires swooped and dipped, swooped and dipped hypnotically past us – or we past them – he looked up as if to speak, but then I saw his brow contract, and the words seemed to die on his lips. He did not speak much through dinner, nor drink much, but pleaded headache, and sipped his way through several glasses of water. We went to bed almost in silence: I knew better than to tax him to speak, although I could not tell what was worrying him. If I pressed him he would shut up like an oyster, and I would never learn.

He did not sleep. I counted the hours, lying awake myself, moderating my breathing that he might think me sleeping, and not watching over him. He turned and turned in the bunk, shuffled like a dog dreaming, and at one point got out with a muttered curse to re-spread the sheets and blankets his restless feet had kicked into knots. I heard him sigh, and cross to the window where the faint light of the waning moon limned him against the glass as he looked out. He stood there for a long time, head bowed. I saw his shoulders hitch, and heard the halting breathing. When he turned round, the light silvered tears on his face. He lay awake after that until morning, as we completed our journey, and drew into the station; as the engine hissed and groaned its way into silence; as night deepened, then paled; as rosy dawn broke over Vienna. But whatever demon dogged him, drew deep, heartbroken sighs from his breast, wrung stifled whimpers from a locked throat – whatever his pain, when he greeted me in the morning it was as gently and cheerfully if he had slept like a babe in arms and not lain awake all night, nursing some mysterious grief.

The hotel was pleasantly luxurious. Our rooms adjoined, and were spacious, with a drawing room between them, adapted to use for work or leisure. My letter of introduction to the local police was well-received, and access to the unfortunate Boydell soon proved to both of us that he was not in his right mind, but suffering from some progressive and incurable mania. He was most definitely not a Fenian, had no more knowledge of them than a child, but had flung out his death-threat accusations almost on a whim, as Mycroft had clearly suspected. The blackmail was real though. He had practised it for some time, but it appeared to me that he was too simple himself to structure such schemes, and had been coached into it, as if given a script to follow.

His financial affairs were in a tangle. His blackmail clearly profited him as a business, and despite the suspicions of the hotelier who had handed him into police for running up a six hundred pound bill that he appeared not to be able to pay, he was not without means. I wondered, however, if he were not a victim of blackmail himself: certain regular withdrawals of the same amount monthly looked rather like some sort of fee to be let alone. The case disposed of for the time being (although I retained all the financial papers, and determined to examine into them further) and arrangements made for us to attend the trial on the seventh as observers, we amused ourselves in Vienna.

Watson had obtained introductions to several of the doctors there, to von Brucke, Breuer and Meynert: he came home on the evening of our arrival in a state of some stupefaction that he had been introduced to Freud, whose ‘Uber Coca’ had just been re-issued. He had, he said, discussed his own cocaine idiosyncrasy with the doctor, whom he found an agreeable man, if a little stiff in his manner, and been assured that such reactions as his were uncommon, and that the drug was safe for general use. I was glad to hear it for it proved to me that there was no risk in the five per-cent dose I now took regularly.

For myself I was happy to give him the time for his doctoring since I was engrossed in learning the different techniques of the police and how they conducted their forensic investigations (which I considered infinitely more advanced than ours). When we met at dinner: I was pleased to observe that whatever had afflicted him with such terrible grief, if he had not shaken it off, he had at least subdued it. I would solace him, I vowed, whatever its cause, but he would have to tell me of it before I could. Meanwhile I would do my possible to make him happy.

‘You have had a good day,’ I said, clapping him on the shoulder, ‘And I am pleased to see it, my dear fellow. It is delightful to see you keeping company with minds as sharp as your own, and with doctors as dedicated. I wish you had more chances like this, Watson, for it is what you deserve. Tell me, did you meet Koller, whose work on cocaine and the eye has been so important?’

‘I did not, alas: he is not here at present. He is in bad odour with the schools: earlier this year he disputed with one of your acquaintance, Billroth’s, interns, a man called Zinner, over the treatment of a patient. Zinner slapped him in the face and called him an impudent Jew: Koller challenged him to a duel, and won. There has been much discussion of the rights and wrongs of the case, for the Jewish doctors are not universally liked. So Koller is not here, and I am sad for it.’

‘I am sorry to hear it, Watson. Professional men should endeavour to settle their differences in the interests of the profession, I feel. Our good Lestrade is as honest a son of England’s church as ever stepped, and I an infidel, yet when we disagree he does not call me one, nor slap my face, and nor do I feel compelled by his insults to challenge him to a duel. Yes, that is a poor state of affairs. What will you do tomorrow then?’

‘I am to visit Meynert and later talk to some of the younger doctors: there is much debate at the moment whether the basis of aberrant behaviour is physiological or within the psyche. Meynert, of course, maintains that it is entirely structural: he has developed the art of dissecting brain material to its highest state, and has many slides showing structural abnormalities. I was discussing with Breuer today the noteworthy case of Phineas Gage - ’

‘ – he that had a tamping iron through the brain, yet recovered enough to work as a stagecoach driver, and died some years later in a _status epilepticus_ perhaps not unconnected with the injury - ’

‘ – indeed: I can always rely on you to know of what I speak, Holmes. It is marvellous to me what you can retrieve from that brain of yours if it relates to the odd, the singular or the illegal. In any event, we were discussing the case and how the patient’s personality changed, and I was able to offer some experiences of my own when dealing with soldiers in India who had received head wounds – instances of recovery where none appeared possible, and subsequent changes in temperament.’ He bent his head, smiling. ‘May I confess to you that – that it, it pleased me greatly to have something of value to contribute? Is that so very conceited of me, Holmes?’

‘No, not in the least.’ I reached across the table to clasp his arm. ‘You undervalue yourself, John. I have the highest opinion of your ability. I wish you shared it. You go modestly on, working with little reward for those who can offer you no advancement, yet you have a good brain, and might do more if you wished. I would not have you different, though. I  - I lo – so much respect your kindness.

‘Thank you.’ He was quiet for a moment, as though considering my words. ‘You are kind yourself to say so, Holmes. Sometimes I feel – I had hoped my life would be different. I am not – not unambitious. Was not unambitious, as you know. I had dreams of fame, and perhaps fortune. They seem far away now. I am – I must be – content with what I have, for I will most assuredly have no more. So perhaps that is why it pleases me to be talking to these great men, and to have my opinion, my small experience, valued. I do not feel envy. But it – solaces me a little to know that I could have had that, and that I still have something to offer. And I teach myself to be content, so I am.’

Was this, I wondered, as I stroked his sleeve in wordless consolation and sympathy, what had ailed him that night in the train? I could not tell: the matter required further thought. But I was glad he had found that solace, and wished there to be more of it.

‘Well, I trust you will have another good day tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I am to visit Billroth. He is a great friend of Brahms, you know, and although he is not here, I am eager to discuss his work with one who knows it well, and has always supported it.’

‘But you do not like Brahms’ work!’ He looked amused. ‘It is Wagner you affect, whom you love so strongly; I thought it must be one or the other with you musical folk: that one cannot be a supporter of both.’

‘They are very different. Brahms – there is something, perhaps a new type of music, new ideas, new ways of tonality and structure. I do not find it as congenial as Wagner: it does not sweep me away or thrill me to the core with emotion. But it is not therefore without value, nor does it always follow that to be a lover of one is to be a hater of the other. Watson, may I ask – are you – are you well, my dear fellow?’

‘I am very well: do I give you cause for concern?’ His eyes were sharp as he looked up at me, his face stern. Without admitting I had seen, had heard his tears, I could take the discussion no further.

‘A courteous enquiry, nothing more.’ No, I could not press it. ‘I am glad of it. Will you read with me before we retire, my Pythias?’

‘Of course, my dear Damon. It is one of my chiefest pleasures, you know that. Well, let us prepare for the night, and then we shall continue with Dumas.’

*****

The trial proceeded as expected. Gladstone’s letter recommending mercy for Boydell and doctors testifying that he was insane combined to commute his sentence to six months, rather than the penal servitude for life he might have been given had he been tried by an English court. I could not see what would become of him after the six months were up – I was strongly of the opinion that he would return to his career of extortion to make a living – but I would pass on all my information to Mycroft, and leave it to him to determine whether he wanted to reel the man in for any other purpose. Watson was of the opinion that before long he would be completely insane, and have to be confined for his own good. ‘And at least in Vienna he stands a better chance of humane treatment, poor wretch. We are so far behind the times in our dealings with the mentally ill.’

We had, therefore, passed two very satisfactory days engaged in our respective interests and so decided to take in some of the sights of Vienna and its surroundings before returning to Paris on the _Express_ on Monday. We spent part of Saturday morning strolling arm in arm in the Graben, pointing out to each other the _objets d’art_ we should like to purchase, had we the money, and walked thence to the Schönbrunn, where we toured the gardens until we could neither of us bear any more winding paths, magnificent vistas, splendid fountains, overheated glasshouses, or exotic plants.

‘It is all very fine,’ said Watson to me, as we wended our weary way back to our hotel. ‘It is very fine indeed: a spectacle besides which London pales into insignificance. This is a great city – an exquisite city. I have never seen such beauty of architecture, and the gardens are sublime. And overall, there is a cheerfulness, and bustle, and an air of prosperity which is most pleasing.’

‘We have not seen the areas of poverty,’ I pointed out. ‘And they will be there, Watson. We are mere fly-by-nights - and were you to discuss the place with a doctor who does the work you do, you would hear of a different city.’

‘That is true,’ said he, and we spoke no more until we reached the hotel, where he asked if I would mind if he bathed before dinner. ‘My leg is playing merry hell with me at the moment. I have done a little too much walking, I think.’ I was about to offer to allow him to use the shared bathroom first when the concierge stopped him, bowing, and handed him an enveloped telegram, which he turned curiously in his hand as we went upstairs.

‘Why, this is from Burns Gibson!’ He had taken it from the envelope as he entered our drawing room, and scanned it quickly. ‘Holmes! The Criminal Law Amendment Bill has passed! It was debated until late on Thursday night: various members – oh, including Labouchère, it appears: he will insist on meddling, will he not - rising to propose this and that change or addition, but once the amendments were agreed, then it received a majority, thank God. It is through at last, Holmes!’

He handed the slip to me. ‘See, the age of consent is to be sixteen: it is to be a misdemeanour to have to do with a child between thirteen and sixteen – humph, that is lenient enough, but we cannot have everything we want in this world immediately: those against the Bill entirely argued that a girl of fourteen or fifteen was old enough and capable enough of enticing a man to his ruin and blackmailing him not to need protection, and so we have this nonsense  – and an outright felony to have to do with a child younger than thirteen. Well that is something, in any case. And if it is not all I wanted, it is better, far better, than before. I am so glad. I am so happy that our children, my poor children, will be protected, Holmes: you cannot think what a relief this is to me.’ He drew a breath and straightened himself with a soldier’s pride, his face all alight with joy.

My heart melted as I looked at him: he had worked so hard for this, he and his friends. He deserved his triumph, if any man did. ‘As it is a relief to all right-thinking men. I congratulate you, my dear, noble Watson, for your part in this work: you have done bravely. We shall have up a good bottle of wine, and celebrate the Bill’s passing, I think. Yes, it is worth celebrating. And when will it go to Royal assent?’

‘On the 14th, I believe, just before Parliament is prorogued. I would dearly like to know what amendments there have been to it, my dear fellow, but of course Burns Gibson could not tell me in a telegram: even this must have cost him some shillings already. I am in hopes that they extend the protections to as many children as possible in as many circumstances. Oh, I am eager to return home now. I must know what is in our victory, and whether it indeed answers all our hopes.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes to Chapter 11
> 
> Holmes’ journeys in Persia are taken from the writings of George Nathaniel Curzon, diplomat and later Viceroy of India, and are completely accurate as descriptions.
> 
> ‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth . . .’ is from the Bible: the Song of Solomon.
> 
> William Holmes, an ornithologist, did, in fact write ‘Sketches on the Shores of the Caspian’ at an appropriate length of time before this takes place for him to be our Holmes’ uncle.
> 
> The mules’ names: ‘Laleh’ means ‘Tulip’ and ‘Balut’, ‘Acorn’.
> 
> My Farsi is as accurate as I can make it, but is currently being checked by a native speaker. I will correct it if necessary.
> 
> Bagoas is the ‘Persian Boy’ of Mary Renault’s novel, and Alexander’s younger lover; Hephaistion, Alexander’s long-time boyhood friend and lover, over whose death he grieved to the point of madness. The stories of Alexander are well known in Persia.
> 
> Blackmail was on the rise in Victorian London at this time. We know, of course, who the master blackmailer really was, and who ACD made him into in Canon.
> 
> The Russian crisis was real, and averted only by some clever diplomacy by the Amir of Aghanistan. Watson was right to fear war: it nearly came to that.
> 
> All ‘Mikado’ concert details are accurate. The Dvorak concert was a premiere, and was attended by the Edinburghs: the Duchess, who was Russian, was notorious for her dislike of England. Look carefully at Holmes comments about the actual pieces played: they are significant.
> 
> The cut direct was not administered lightly. It is as described: full recognition followed by deliberate refusal to acknowledge, and could reflect as badly on the person who administered it as the person to whom it was offered.
> 
> David reference: in the Bible, King David is in love with the resolutely loyal to her husband and chaste Bathsheba. Since she will not give in to David, he sends her husband, Uriah, to the front line of battle, so that when he is killed David can take his wife.
> 
> Dynamite: the Fenian campaign was still continuing, and Holmes and Watson were, of course, still involved.
> 
> Hanging Day at the Royal Academy was where all of the famous artists exhibited their work. Look for Frith’s 1881 painting of the day, and you will see many of the people described here (although the paintings are those shown in 1885). I made a small continuity error here, and only just found it before I posted. 
> 
> Oh, the irony. Adam Worth (often considered to be the model for Moriarty) is talking to William Agnew . . .from who he actually stole the Gainsborough painting of the Duchess of Devonshire. You have to hand it to him: the man is brazen. He carried the portrait round with him in a special case for years. As he talks to poor Agnew, whose reputation never recovered, that portrait is sitting under his mattress!
> 
> Events around the 'Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon; and the passing of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill are as stated by our friends Holmes, and Watson. Stead’s behaviour was reprehensible, and he was, later on, prosecuted and imprisoned for abduction. All information is taken from newspapers, and checked with reference to Hansard, the British parliamentary record.
> 
> Holmes and Watson quote from Omar Khayyam, Ben Jonson, and Shakespeare in the moon passage. 
> 
> All information about Gladstone is accurate (!) He was an inveterate frequenter of ladies of the night, but Shinwell Johnson tells Holmes the names they actually used for him, which implies he did not have sex. He used a scourge to flagellate himself however, for sexual discipline; usually on nights after he had visited the prostitutes, as he noted in his own diaries (!)
> 
> This is not Poirot’s Orient Express, but the first one, so details will not be the same as in the Agatha Christie book.The menu is from 17th April, 1884.
> 
> Viennese personalities who are mentioned were all there at the time of Holmes and Watson’s visit. We may find out more about this.
> 
> This fic has now reached a ridiculous number of words: I may continue with a 'Volume 2' rather than tag another chapter on here, but I will let people know. Still not in the least inclined to stop writing though . . .


	12. Chapter 12

Since First I saw Your Face Part 12

**Holmes sits at his desk, painstakingly encoding a message to his brother. How can it be morning again, he thinks, watching the dancing light dapple his floor with sun and shadow, when it seems he has barely slept. Leaden fatigue drags each limb: he is free of his fever, but the exhaustion after it will not leave him.**

**_While she lived to companion him, I could bear that he should think me dead, for I could be nothing to him but a burden and a reproach. I bore my sorrow best alone. Now that it is he who believes that he has no-one to love, he will not wish to live long. He has lost so much already, mother, brother, sister, wife, the child who never came to gladden his heart. Represent to him in your strongest terms the sorrow of those who care for him if he were to die – Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, the children. Tell him he must live for the children. You may appeal to him best thus: he is tender of heart and will not willingly give pain to those he protects. And release the Sigerson papers: ensure that he reads them. I believe there is that in them which may give him hope._ **

**_I cannot lose him, Mycroft, or there is nothing for me on this earth. I charge you by the love you bear your Juventus do not fail me in this. And send me news: I have had nothing since your telegram. Have you forgotten what it is to anguish over one you love? When he was in peril, did we not strain every nerve to find your beloved? You leave me starving: do not do so, I beg you or I cannot go on. My days are weary, and my strength diminished. I want release._ **

**Holmes seals the letter, lays it aside.  Today he is to meet Moran.**

**Moran. The last of Moriarty’s lieutenants, the hardest to turn, defeat or comprehend. The criminal mastermind’s rationale he had fathomed – it was not difficult once the reasons for his crusade were known. Holmes could understand, although never condone. Greed and anger impelled the other two: such is the measure of man. But Moran – what might cause him to wage his long war against his own country, Holmes has never been able to divine.**

**There is a discreet tap at his door. ‘Sir, it is almost time.’**

**‘Come in, Sykes.’ Holmes stands unsteadily, pulls a robe over his nightshirt, and runs both hands through his hair. ‘You have me at a disadvantage, I am afraid. Is there any news from - ’ he checks, ‘England?’**

**‘Nothing from yesterday’s diplomatic bag, Sir,’ Percival Molesworth Sykes, diplomat, spy and enthusiast for his country is fresh-faced, painfully eager, the gloss of youth still on him. ‘You have not forgotten, Sir, that at noon you have a rendezvous with Colonel Moran?’**

**‘Indeed not: I shall be ready. Thank you,’ Holmes nods a polite dismissal, then allows himself to smile. Sykes has been good to him after all; discreet, kind, and surprisingly patient with the fevered, debilitated wreck cast up on his doorstep over a week ago. ‘I shall be ready, fear not.’ And then when Sykes does not go, ‘What do you have for me?’**

**‘I dismissed the muleteers a day ago, Sir, as you bade me. Last night this was delivered.’ He hands Holmes a small package. Holmes unties the band holding the cloth together, and reveals a small coin, a silver drachm of Alexander such as are found now and again in the markets, picked out of some ancient, scavenged hoard. A slip of paper flutters to the floor and he retrieves it, turning it to read the scribe’s elegant hand. _For my Alexander,_ it reads _. I will never forget. Your Bagoas._**

**Holmes sighs, tracing the still-clear profile on the coin with a careful finger. He has not meant to inspire love, but love will come whether sought or unsought. He had parted from Dariush with pain, seeing him so lovelorn, had kissed him gravely on the forehead, and bidden him farewell, steeled himself to a gentle embrace when that light weight was cast on his breast, the boy quivering and shaken with repressed sobs as he stammered his parting words, his hands clasped on Holmes’ shoulder. He had never wished to cause sorrow. He had not thought to buy the lad a parting gift: now the generous pay he has given both Dariush and Hamid as thanks for their care seems a cold recompense.  ‘Dariush,’ he murmurs, wholly forgetting Sykes’ tolerant presence.**

**‘The boy from your caravan?’ Sykes asks, leaning over to examine the drachm. ‘He and his brother came thrice daily to enquire of your health. It is a rare gift, he has given you, as well as a gentle: one does not find many such coins now. He is your devoted servant, it would seem, poor lad.’**

**‘It is not even as if . . .’**

**‘It is the age: were we not all so at school? The nature of the adolescent is to be what the Germans call ‘schwarmerisch’. He will recover, as do we all.’**

**‘Perhaps.’ Holmes cannot tolerate more of this: not so were his brief schooldays. ‘It is not a subject fit for discussion. Though Persia counts him at seventeen a man grown, he is but a boy by the reckoning of England.’**

**Sykes draws back. ‘Forgive me, I did not mean to offend. You must know that things are very different here from in England. We are in Sir Richard’s Sotadic zone after all: the loves of boys and men have a long history here.’ He shrugs. ‘I have learned to be more tolerant, away from Mrs Grundy.’**

**‘I am sorry for the lad, but I gave him no cause. I must prepare, Sykes. Colonel Moran has agreed to our conditions?’**

**‘He has, and the money is ready should he consent, but he has driven a hard bargain. And still I am not sure that he will turn: there was that in his eye when we met that mocked me. There are men stationed for your safety: all you need to do is to make the sign, and they will be there. Do you have anything for the bag, Sir?’**

**Holmes retrieves his coded missive. ‘This. It must go haste, haste, post haste to - England. By fast courier: it is of primary importance to - ’ he checks briefly, ‘to the conduct of the affair. Let there be no delay, I beg you, or my – our cause may fail. Is there aught for me this morning?’**

**‘This morning’s diplomatic bag has not yet arrived, Sir,’**

**‘Then it should be brought as soon as may be. I cannot operate with these delays, Sykes. There is no telegram?’**

**‘No Sir, but should one arrive, I will have it sent to you at once.’**

**‘Very well then, in forty minutes, I shall be ready. Will you send a man to collect my letters in half an hour? There is more I must write.’**

**_When you receive this, Mycroft, send to Bayt Safar, and request the munshi, Agha Muhammad Karim Sharif to search out two boys, Dariush, and Hamid, by name, who work for the mule train of Jamshid al Dalakhi that plies the passes between Bushire and Shiraz. He is to be empowered to offer them a stipend, and what employment, or education they choose so only that they do not enter the Great Game; the monies to be remitted from my share of the Cornish estate, and thus in perpetuity until such time as there is no longer a need. Let it be done, brother, as you love me, for they were kind when I was in trouble._ **

**He lays his pen aside, and sighs. Now to begin the battle.**

*********

**‘And so,’ Colonel Moran lounges upon the divan, very much at his ease in his Eastern garb, nargileh to his lips, ‘you, then, have been my true adversary these two years, Mr Holmes. Or do you prefer I still say Mr Sigerson?’**

**Holmes inclines his head, eyes wary.**

**‘I thought Holmes happily lost in some Swiss crevasse, or tumbling among streams, his bones raven-stripped and stark.’**

**‘Yet here he is, Colonel Moran.’**

**‘And Sigerson I supposed to be some new entrant into the Game: a supple player of some merit. Had I seen his face, all would have been clear, of course, for I never forget a face I hate. My intelligence was imperfect: I must remember to discuss their deficiencies with those ignoble hinds I hired to obtain it.’**

**‘I have no doubt that they will find that discussion most edifying.’**

**‘But brief, I am afraid, sadly brief. It is a pity Holmes did not die: my plans have been greatly inconvenienced by his continued existence as Sigerson, not to mention the very natural sorrow he occasioned me over the loss of one whom I must ever regard as the greatest and wisest of men.’**

**‘Alas that I do not share your regrets at his demise, Colonel.’**

**‘Alas, indeed. Our reckoning is not yet made up for that, but I have made a note of it. You have been an adversary of some interest: it is, perhaps, a shame you are not with us, for had you been of our party, we might have been able to find a use for you before making a final decision anent your death.’**

**‘I would confess myself flattered, Colonel, were it not for my belief we should not have suited. I was never like to be of your party. ’**

**‘No you were not, were you? A little Tory squirelet, sprung of common stock. How should you play for the great stakes? Your cant of honour and love of your country informs all: you are a bourgeois of the bourgeoisie, steeped in an outworn creed. A man of narrow sympathies, of cramped, ignoble sentiments. Doubtless you still believe in God, in faith, in morality.’**

**‘Setting aside my belief, do you consider your creed to be more noble?’**

**‘I am a new type, the** **Übermensch: you with your limited knowledge and intellect are incapable of understanding it.’**

**‘You refer to the work of Herr Nietzsche? I am not unfamiliar with it, although I do not think his intent in writing is yours in execution.’**

**‘You amaze me: I had not thought your understanding would extend so far: his concepts are novel, sublime, and not to be comprehended by** **_οἱ πολλοί._ The Professor was such a type as am I: his tragedy was to be brought low by a commonplace little man such as yourself. How I wish I had killed you then!’**

**Holmes tenses. There are twenty soldiers within call: if this madman, drunk on the belief of his own superiority, his own transcendence of any ‘common’ morality, draws blade or point against him now, he will not survive it. Sadly, neither is Holmes likely to: his weakness is extreme. And he does not want to die now, not now, not when his long deferred hope – and his heart will hope, constrain it how he may – may come to fruition. Had he been able to postpone the meeting further, he would have done so, but Moran would not longer stay his leisure, and so he must run the risk.**

**Much, however, that was previously hidden to him has been revealed in their tense stichomythia, not least the improbability that his task will succeed. He is permitted to offer abundant wealth to Moran, in exchange for his turning, for his playing double agent to his Russian masters, and putting into the hands of the British government information of great value to them. The crisis in Chitral continues to unfold, as Sykes’ master, Captain Francis Younghusband, stationed there to promote British interests, reports. The Ameer of Afghanistan turns like a weathercock into every favourable wind blowing out of Russia, complaining that the £60,000 a year subsidy voted to him by Her Majesty’s Government cannot support the expenses of holding the Afghan frontier against the Czar. Small uprisings, spontaneous rebellions everywhere in the jewel in Britain’s crown bewilder and strain local and national leaders alike. And Moran is behind it all, fomenting discord and distrust and hatred, a very Iago, that epitome of motiveless malignity, an Eris, the living embodiment of strife and dissension.**

**The moment passes. He meets Moran’s hard stare.**

**‘I may offer you whatever money you desire to return to your proper allegiance and work for Her Majesty’s Government, paying for your treachery by secretly renouncing your work for Russia, and acting instead as our double agent against them. There will be immunity from the capital charge in exchange for the information you carry. Think on it well, Colonel, for we know you. We know your acts. Setting aside what dishonest dealings you have had at card table and in the bedroom, we know of your political chicaneries. We know, to give you one example, that it was you suborned Sir Lepel Griffin and others to speak in favour of the Ameer Abdul Rahman Khan in the House, to allay suspicions of his being disloyal to our interests in Afghanistan. We know that you were behind the murder of Afzal ul Mulk who looked to our interests in Chitral, and Sher Afzul Khan’s taking of the throne. That when we made overtures to Afzul, you supported Nizam ul Mulk when he rose and deposed him. We know that now we have won Nizam’s favour, you secretly suborn him to offer concessions to the Russians. We know who was the agent in Chitral who carried dispatches: we have pierced the web you have woven. We know that you were the agent who paid Makuddas Aman to raise the people for Russia in Tangir and Darel, that you negotiated the visit of the Ameer of Bokkhara to St Petersburg earlier this year, and the setting up of the Rossiya Trading Company in Persia, in direct competition to our interests. It was you who prompted Talbot to interfere between Turkey and Qatar, much to our disadvantage. And this is not the half of it. We know all that you have done, Colonel, and yet we are prepared to take you back into the fold.’**

**‘Then that is a mark of your weakness and craven pusillanimity, and my strength. I am no sheep to be shorn for the Widow of Windsor’s woolsack.’**

**‘On the contrary, you were described once to me as a wolvish fleecer of stray lambs. A plucker of any unwary young pigeon that fell into your hawk’s claws.’**

**‘I always hated John Watson when we were in the army.’ Moran smiles slightly. ‘Ah, do not look so startled: his words were brought to me that very day. I was aware of his presence before he of mine, you know, on the evening. The Wagner was sublime, was it not: is there an artist who knows better how strength must ever transcend virtue? But I digress, we spoke of the little doctor. He is a man of tepid virtue and pious honour, a very simple, stainless Galahad. And yet he is strangely hard to defeat: it is incalculable that one of such ignoble spirit has withstood me. In India he once offered me insult, coming between me and one I had chosen, but he would not stand and fight me. When I saw him in London, I thought to inveigle him into our coterie in order to betray and expose him as a punishment for his former insolence, but he offered me insult again. I went to work with a right good will, then, and we would have destroyed him in ’87, had he not woven such a net of protections around himself with his noble works. You are surprised: did you not know that it was I behind his troubles? I thought you more perspicacious - I must remember that when next I am tempted to overrate you. But in the end I was glad I had not had him sent to the treadmill, for it has been as meat and strong drink to me, my dear Mr Holmes, to see him wander London after your death, walking his weary round, toiling and hewing amid the unworthy weaklings of the city, and nigh drowned in sorrow that his cherished friend had died. I confess that I thought at one time simply to have some rude assassin of the streets take him off, but upon mature reflection I decided it would please me more that he should suffer, should drag out his broken heart for all his days. Indeed I have myself refrained from killing him. I passed him once on a bridge, you know – Westminster, I believe it was - in a cold January dawn. I was sorely tempted to end his pining by tipping up his heels and assisting him to the watery end he so clearly longed for – my knife was eager enough - but I compelled myself to consider that his death would spoil my sport. And then I had to come away, of course, to advance my transactions in Russia. So has the good doctor shuffled off this mortal coil, do you know, or does he yet weary the patient air by breathing it?’**

**‘I will not sully his name by speaking it in your presence, Colonel. You have your proposition, a simple yea or nay is all that is required. Money and immunity from the charge of high treason if you will work for your rightful Queen against the Czar as a double agent. Come, Colonel, you could be of value to your country. Will you not return to us? The stakes are high, but also the rewards.’**

**‘You cannot pay my price, Mr Holmes,’ Moran draws on the nargileh, blows a great cloud of smoke. ‘Sebastian Moran is not to be bought. Nothing you can offer is worth more to him than to be the agent of his own greatness. He owes allegiance to no ruler but his own desires. He has cast off your petty morality.’**

**‘ _“Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,”_ ’ Holmes murmurs, almost to himself. He conceals a shiver.**

**‘Milton’s thought was deficient in expression – he was a man of low breeding – but not unworthy in substance. If it is any consolation to you, you may take this back to your petty masters: that neither do I owe allegiance to Russia. My actions are determined solely with reference to what is most to my advantage. At this time it suits me better to advance the cause of the Czar: there is more sport to be gained from it. And I have ever been a sporting man.’**

**‘Yea or nay, Colonel Moran?’**

**‘I am afraid it must be nay, my dear man. I do not choose to condescend to such worms as inhabit the palaces of Westminster and Whitehall. I will not lower myself to place my fate in their hands, but forge my own path regardless of their morality. God, you may know, is dead: I am my own deity.’**

**Holmes nods. ‘Then I am to say to you that should you return to England, you will be subject to surveillance, and if you transgress even by a hairsbreadth, the full weight of the law will be invoked against you. You have thrown off your allegiance to Britannia; her sceptre will not be extended to you in mercy.’**

**‘But I have done nothing to Britannia for which I can be arrested, Holmes. What can you prove against me? Where is your evidence? In India, in Persia, in Afghanistan there are none now who dare speak in my disfavour: or death has stopped their mouths, or speech would damn them also. And in England, I have not transgressed: even were the plucking of unwary little pigeons a crime, their greed and stupidity would stand as my defence. And it is not a crime to converse with those in government, nor to play them at cards.’**

**Holmes stands. ‘That is your last word?’**

**‘It is.’**

**‘Then our business is concluded. Good day to you, Colonel Moran. Under the terms of our agreement you may leave here without hindrance. You have six and thirty hours of the agreed truce remaining: from tomorrow at midnight, my hand is against you once more. Guard yourself, for I will find you, and when I do there will be no leave asked nor quarter given, not least for the words you have spoken of my friend.’**

**‘Did he ever have you, your pious Doctor Watson?’ Moran’s voice is soft. ‘Did he take you up the arse while you moaned and wept and pleaded until he spent? Did you go to your knees, you filthy little pathic, and suck his prick while he fucked that eloquent mouth of yours? No? A pity then, that you will never have that vile pleasure, Holmes. For when I see you again I will kill you, and him also.’**

**‘The truce ends at midnight tomorrow,’ Holmes repeats. ‘Good day to you, Colonel Moran.’**

*********

**_I have seen him,_ writes Holmes to Mycroft, _and given him your terms. He will not turn: our only consolation is that he professes no allegiance to the Czar but maintains he is motivated solely by what advantage he can gain. The man is mad with_** **_ὕβρις: drunk on the rarefied ether of Nietzschean theory. He is a rabid animal, not to be reasoned with. Beware, brother, look to your own protection, and extirpate his infection from your ranks, lest ill befall. Call off your fools from Watson and assign him better guards, for all love: are you not apprised of the fact that Moran came within a breath of killing him, thanks to your ineptitude, or did you choose not to inform me of this salient point? Mycroft, I can do this no longer: I must come home. He must know that I live._ **

**Holmes seals his letter, and summons Sykes. After his meeting with Moran he had informed Sykes of the outcome, bidden him conform to the letter of the truce, walked stiffly back to his chambers and there vomited, vomited again and again until his gut was sore, his eyes blind, and his head ringing. His bodily prostration had been such that when Sykes had come to his room later that day to bring a telegram from Mycroft**

**_(I have released the Sigerson papers, thinking it best not to wait for your agreement. The Dumas arrangement remains to us, but I hope not to have to use it. I sent you a more detailed letter four days ago: it should arrive ere long.)_ **

**and found him exhausted and ill, he had instantly summoned a doctor. Holmes had been threatened with brain fever if he did not sleep, and when he protested that he could not without morphia, been given enough to drug himself into an oblivion that had lasted for forty eight hours until he woke hollow, wretched and craving the opiate with a sick, relentless persistence.**

**Now, wrapped in a gown against the cold that seems to rack his bones even in Shiraz’s June heat, he hands Sykes the coded letter, and asks with scant hope, whether there is anything in return. His host’s honest face breaks into a smile, and he produces, with something of a flourish, a sealed envelope.**

**‘Thank you,’ Holmes raises deeply shadowed eyes to the cheerful young man.**

**‘I hope it is good news, Sir,’ says Sykes, compassionately. ‘Do you find your health improves a little? You did bravely, with Colonel Moran, luring him in: I know not what enticement you used, but he was content to wait for the meeting, even to treat with you. He is an evil man, and we have only just begun to know it, for he goes covertly to work, and hides his traces well. Moreover, he has been received in so many places for his good father’s sake that no suspicion was ever entertained of his double dealing. Had it not been for your work, we would never have known the half of it. Creighton was fulsome in his praise, declared he would dearly have loved you to have been entered to the Great Game as a lad, that had he ten such as you, he could compass the Russians about with spies and hinder their dealings entirely. But I see it has taken its toll, Sir. We have been so very concerned about you.’**

**_Moran called me a filthy pathic, laid bare my desires, threatened my beloved John. He fouled what I held sacred, mocked the bodily union of two conjoined hearts as the rutting of beasts, trod tenderness and delight into the dust. I do not think I will ever get over it. I cannot unhear his words, they reverberate in the void that is my despair. I cannot forget what he said. It is not that, it is not, oh, it is not. It is love and honour and beauty. John said so, he said that where there is love, where there is consent, there is no wrong, but only joy. I must forget. I cannot forget. John, help me._ **

**‘You make too much of my part: I am a mere bit-part player in the Game, not a principal. As for my health, I confess to some fatigue yet, but I shall not cumber you for long. I am awaiting instructions for my next assignment - indeed this may be what I look for.’ He holds out his hand for the envelope.**

**‘You are welcome to stay as long as you wish, Sir. There is no hurry on our part. Shiraz is beautiful: pray rest with us a while. We are a small community, but there are many who would be glad to meet the Sigerson of whose peregrinations they have heard – even if they do not know the half of it.’**

**‘Nor should they,’ Holmes tries to smile. ‘You have not been indiscreet, have you, Mr Sykes?’**

**‘Of course not, Sir. It is only that  - well, those of your dispatches and descriptions that have been for the common eye are held as models of lucidity and elegance. Your writings have been eagerly read, I assure you. There are many who would wish to talk to you, but you have kept so retired . . .’**

**‘Of necessity, Sykes, and that necessity has not eased. I am sorry: your hospitality has been most kind, yet I can make no return. A few days, and I must depart, for such is the way of it.’**

**‘Then I am sorry for it too, Sir. May I hope for your company at breakfast tomorrow? I know you dine alone this evening.’**

**‘I shall be delighted.’ Holmes surrenders to courtesy. ‘Now if you will excuse me, I must see if this contains my instructions . . .’**

**‘Certainly, Sir. I wish you a very good night. Pray touch the bell if there is anything you require: an attendant is always at hand.’**

**Alone, Holmes turns the envelope in unsteady hands, searching for the minute pinprick markings by which he knows his brother’s personal missives. This must surely be the news he has been waiting for.**

**_My dear Sherlock,_ **

**Mycroft in conciliatory mode: it betokens nothing good. The cipher is their own; a childhood’s game, indecipherable without its key. Sighing, Holmes mentally recites the stanza, finding the words which correspond to day and month and using them as key for his decoding,**

_“Then out spake brave Horatius,_  
The Captain of the Gate:  
"To every man upon this earth  
Death cometh soon or late.  
And how can man die better  
Than facing fearful odds,  
For the ashes of his fathers,  
And the temples of his Gods . . .”   **the irony of that choice striking him forcibly as he reads the complex cipher off with practised ease.**

**_I write in some detail, as I know you would wish. I have seen him. He received me dressed with his old, soldierly neatness, but remained seated, apologising for being unable to stand for any length of time. He wore the deepest mourning, and when I commented upon the extent of his blacks, reminded me with a melancholy smile that he mourned a beloved spouse. In view of his weakness, I offered some slight assistance with funeral arrangements; there was no show of hesitation but he accepted with an alacrity that hinted he would be grateful for more. I offered further to arrange all for him, and beyond insisting that he would defray all expenses, he made no demur about anything I suggested. He gave some careful direction about the service – it is to be most private, with none there but himself and a few of her closest friends – and the interment, also very simple. I spoke of a notice in the newspapers: he hesitated, then in a low and wretched tone requested only the date, and the words, ‘After long illness, bravely borne, Mary, born Morstan, dear wife of John Watson. She was most dutiful in all her ways, wise, temperate, just, and of a sincere, believing heart.’_ **

**_Our business concluded, I asked about his plans. He replied that he was barely able to rise from his chair, and foresaw a long recuperation ahead, but that he rather thought he would travel on the continent as soon as possible. He spoke of the air of Switzerland as marvellously restorative  - a panacea for all ills - and conducive to peace of mind - with a look in his eye that, I confess, chilled me to the bone. I endeavoured to put before him, in as gentle a fashion as a man well might, that he had a duty not to abandon himself to sorrow, urging the necessity of not wholly giving in to grief and representing to him that the world still had a use for him and for his work. He assented, but if he had heard half of what I said, I would be astounded, so deep had he sunk in reverie at, I must assume, the thought of Switzerland._ **

**_After sitting with him in silence for some while, I took my leave. He pressed my hand kindly, and enquired after my Juventus quite in his old fashion, but when I observed him from the doorway, it was clear that although present in body, he was very much absent in spirit. Your erstwhile protégé showed me out, so I bade her watch him closely, and gave her precise instructions as to what to do should he leave the house. I am sure the girl will look after him well: she worships the ground he walks on. She informed me that Mrs Hudson had been there every day of late; was, in fact expected back imminently, and that Lestrade’s wife was also in attendance. I shall speak to Lestrade and have a discreet watch kept: it will not do to have him give us all the slip, for I read that intention in his eye. At least he is too weak to walk far at present._ **

**_It is imperative, Sherlock, that you bring your business to a speedy conclusion. I do not know how long we have. I have considered enlightening Watson, but although there is less danger with Moran in Persia, I do not know how many men our ungallant Colonel has bought and suborned here. I am still attempting to get to the bottom of whose gambling debts he has obtained, and to determine how many of our foolish young gentlemen of the Foreign Office are under his thumb because of it. Now that Worth has been committed to Leuven prison, he is out of the way, however, and can no longer fund Moran, so we have at least cut off that source of money. I trust this may clip the hawk’s wings._ **

**_I very much regret how a course of action that appeared straightforward has had unexpected ramifications for one so dear to you, brother. I own my miscalculation with great sorrow: I had no idea he would be so affected by your supposed death. His manners are so calm and quiet, that one does not suspect him of any deep feeling, and although I knew him to be attached to you as a friend, I had not suspected how sorely you would be missed. I can only vow that I will not further ask you for assistance – and say that had I known when I first involved you in my work what it would mean to you, I would never have done so. And yet, it appeared at the time that we could do no other, poor fallible men that we are._ **

**_I have made arrangements for your further conveyance through Arabia and onward, after this part of your journey is concluded. Do not fail: you are waited for here._ **

**Holmes lets the letter fall, and covers his eyes with one hand. He knows with an absolute certainty that if Watson is allowed to travel to Switzerland, he will take his own life. It is time that he takes action, whatever Mycroft thinks.**

*********

In the event, we did not take the Orient Express back to Paris on the Monday we had planned, but extended our stay in Vienna for a further few days, since it seemed a pity not to sample its delights while we had the chance. I wired Mycroft to remit funds from the Cornish estate, practising a pious fraud on my dear Watson, who believed that the government had paid for the whole. It was not just that I delighted in seeing him once more with medical men of some standing – oh, it was not that he was not well-regarded at Barts, and in the Police Divisions, but here his modest authority and his extensive knowledge of Indian medicine seemed valued in a way it did not at home – it was that I loved to have him at leisure, eased of his toil, and returning fresh from a meeting or a conversation to laugh and jest with me. At home he was often weary and sometimes sad, the long days impressing him only with a painful sense of his own helplessness against the crime and poverty he fought so valiantly. I was glad if he could set it aside for a while, even though I knew it to be never wholly forgotten.

And he was so fond. His eye met mine with such eloquent affection, his hand seemed more eager than ever for my grasp. If I did not place my arm within his immediately we walked out, he would take my hand and nestle it into the crook of his elbow, patting it gently, smiling at me as if to say ‘there, that is where you belong, and ever have done. Do not separate yourself from me, Sherlock, we are together, you know.’ We rode and walked and explored together when he was done with his discussions and I with my police work – for it suited me to oblige them with some small feats of deduction -  attended some few lunchtime concerts – the Wiener Hofoper was, alas in its summer recess – and in the evening we would sit on our sofa reading. His arm was so warm around me: his stalwart shoulder – at least, the uninjured one, poor fellow - came to be for me a place of the sweetest repose.

On our last evening in Vienna, indeed, I fell deep asleep, waking an hour later to find myself still cradled in his arms, his cheek resting on my head as he too dozed. I woke him then and apologised very much, drawing myself away and attempting to flatten my unruly hair, but he laughed, eyes soft and sleep-muddled, teasing me and saying that he had had no dagger to cut off the sleeve of his robe and release himself, like the Chinese Emperor of old who had not time to await the awakening of his beloved companion, and that he had therefore fallen asleep himself in simple self-defence. I did not know the story he mentioned, and when he told it to me I was surprised to find that the Emperor’s beloved companion, was not, as I had thought, a female courtesan.

‘I do not know why you look so amazed: you know I have no animus against Greek loves.’ He smiled at me. ‘Holmes, your hair is still sticking up like a hedgehog’s spines, just here,’ and he touched my temple, ‘where you were lying against me. And you have a crease down here,’ he drew a line just under my cheekbone, ‘where the seam of my robe has marked you. It will fade. But tell me, why are you shocked, my dear fellow? Is it truly so strange a thing to you that one man can love another? In China, they call the love of one man for another ‘the passion of the cut sleeve’. There is so much poetry in that, such beauty. I envy their freedom, do not you? Of course,’ and I thought he sighed a little, ‘you say you are not a man who sets great store by love. What is it you said to me once? “Love is an emotional thing, and anything that is emotional is opposed to that true, cold reason, which I place above all things.”’

I looked away, wishing that I had never uttered those unfortunate words, but after rearranging my hair a little he went on, ‘I understand that you choose not to indulge in it, but I do not believe that it is by _reason_ of cold reason, for I have known you now for some years, and although reason may solve many of the problems that come to you, it is your heart that moves you to apply reason. You are not incapable of loving. You are a good friend – true and kind and thoughtful of me - and for all your defence of not having a heart, I know that a very gentle, feeling one beats in your bosom. So I think you belie yourself when you say you are a reasoner, not a man of heart, and why you do so, I do not know. It grieves me, my dear, that you cut yourself off from human loves. I am sorry for whatever in your childhood has caused you so to distrust the world that you must do so.’

It was so easy for him to breach my defences. A kind word, an affectionate look, the little innocent caress – I would have done anything for him then.

‘Very well, then, I admit it. It is easier not to have a heart to feel.’ I drew breath, coming to my resolution. ‘But I will tell you of my childhood, if you care to hear it.’

‘It would be an honour to hear anything you wish to tell me: how should it not be, when I have laid all of my bitter troubles bare to you? Stay, I shall mend the fire a little – it strikes cold in the late evening in these great, high-ceilinged rooms – and pour us a glass of that light summer wine. Shall we sit together, Holmes, or would you prefer to sit alone?’

‘With you: the sofa is wide enough.’

He set down the wine within easy reach, and seated himself a little away from me. ‘Tell me then. I shall not judge you, even as you in your kindness did not judge me.’

‘May I – will you sit nearer, John?’ I had not wanted to ask, but my heart beat so hard I could not refrain.

‘Indeed I will. What do you wish for – or stay, I have it. I shall recline like this and if you move a little – there that is right. Tell me whatever you want, my dear.’

So it was in his arms, with my head upon his shoulder again, and our feet entangled together that I made my plaint.

‘I grew up in a house in Cornwall, on a bare hill above a sea that never seemed to smile. I remember it always as winter, and cold; there were dark gloomy corridors, halls with no fires, and my nursery painted brown, with harsh, sticky oilcloth on the floor, and high, barred windows. It was a long house, rambling, with many rooms, musty and dim, their blinds down, and the furniture swathed in white sheets. The chairs and sofas loomed out of the shadows like so many misshapen ghosts: I fancied often that they would move, and one room, the walls painted a cold, dark red, and hung about with dull-varnished portraits of women in stiff, satin dresses and men in black gowns, impressed me as if it were the chamber of a murderer, so ominous did it seem.’

‘It sounds lonely and frightening, my poor Sherlock. But you had family, did you not? Did not your Mama and Papa live there?’

‘There was my nurse, and a woman who must have been the cook, and none other than the man who came to do the garden. My mother and father did not live there.’

‘Not live there! How old were you then?’

‘I was there from my earliest remembrance until I went to school at thirteen. I was not always alone, for from when I was seven, I had a tutor who came to teach me. He was an old man, stern and gloomy, and if I did not learn well he would beat me, so I had, perforce, to apply myself, and being intelligent, grew quickly in knowledge. Indeed, once I could read well, my happiness there was the library, for every book there must ever have been was to be found there, and since there was none to say me nay – my nurse was glad to be rid of me – I spent all my day there, and often read into the night too, creeping down when she was snoring in her bed.’

‘Tell me at least that she was kind, your nurse? That she cared for you?’

‘If she did, I did not know it. For all her cant of piety, and calling down of the devil upon me for a wayward slip of a noble tree – oh yes, that is what she would say, and with some justification, for in truth, Watson, I have no right to my name but bear it by grudging courtesy only – she was a woman who had taken to drink. She drugged herself with laudanum also. She liked it best to have little to do with me but to coze in the warm kitchen with the cook all day, eating and drinking, and so I had little to do with her, once I was an age to know that, and absent myself.’

‘But did you never see your family? You break my heart.’ His arms tightened about me, and his cheek pressed my hair. ‘Oh my dear, my dear. At least my mother loved me. But you never knew yours.’

‘When I was eleven, there was a summer’s day when there was a great bustle about the house: some rooms were redded up, and fires were lit, to drive away the damp. My tutor summoned me in the morning, and informed me that my mother and father would be visiting, and that I was to be on my best behaviour, for my future depended on how well I should acquit myself. They came at last in a grand carriage, and I stood in the hall, to watch my mother carried in on a chair. For the first time, I saw a face like the one that had looked back at me from the panes of a bookcase – there were no looking glasses in the house, so I had only a dim knowledge of my own appearance. She was a beautiful woman, John, imagine this colour of hair, but long and flowing, my shade of iris, but the eye huge, speaking, and thickly fringed with long lashes, this beak of mine softened and refined into a delicately carved little Roman nose. But even at eleven, I could see that she was very ill, there was no flesh on her slender bones, and her skin had the sickly pallor of one who had suffered for a long time. I learned after that she was able to walk a little: she could make shift to drag herself about, but with great pain, and so she was usually carried. And she was yet a young woman.’

He could not well hold me more lovingly, but a kiss was laid on my cheek, gentle as the brush of a feather. ‘Go on.’

‘The man who came with her was tall, a broad, commanding presence, with hair of a distinct shade of auburn, and tightly curled, like a ram’s fleece. I did not much regard him at first, for following him was a boy perhaps seven years older than I, his very image, down to the hair, and the brown eyes. The man I took to be my father had an angry look, and I feared him, but this lad was less fierce. There was a languid ease in his manner that seemed strange to me: how could one be indolent who was so blessed – for he looked sleek, and plump, and was well cared for; the man patted him on the shoulder with some affection as they passed, and my mother, when he went to kneel by her chair, caressed his cheek with one delicate hand. He smiled at me though, I recall, and I smiled back.’

‘And this was your family?’

‘It was, in sort. I was told that the woman was my mother; the man her husband, but not my father; the boy my half brother, who was just about to leave Eton - where he had won high honours and been held in great esteem - for the university, whence he would go in the fullness of time into some high position or other. He had somehow – he has never told me how - found out about my existence, which had been kept from him for many years, and being his father’s darling and his mother’s joy, from whom naught he desired was ever withheld, had so won upon them over a period of a year that he had procured – for which I shall ever hold him in reverence and esteem – some acknowledgement of me, and an amelioration of my condition. He had exacted, I know not by what means, a promise that I should go to school, and later be admitted into the family. He came to me in the course of the conversation, shook me warmly by the hand, addressed me by my name as Sherlock, and told me that he was Mycroft, that I might call him brother, for he was glad to know me at last, and hoped that we should know each other better and be great friends thereafter.’

‘If ever I am to meet him, I shall honour him for that kindness. He did justly by you, Sherlock, for he need not have acknowledged you.’

‘He was not only kind and just but generous: he has shared his all with me. But the man I was told I must address only with ‘Sir’. My mother held out her hand to me once, and when I approached, took mine only to press it briefly, her fingers seeming to shrink from mine in revulsion. She showed me no mark of affection then, nor ever did she so. Her usual address for me was ‘boy’, when she deigned to speak to me at all. Oh John, John, my dear fellow, my kind heart, why are your eyes wet? It was a long time ago now, and all is over: they are both dead. And – and I cannot tell you more now about that yet. Suffice it to say that the man, Mr Holmes, whose name I bore all unwanted, examined me in my studies; Mycroft and my mother looking on. If it had not been for my new brother, I might have faltered, but I could have worshipped him for his kindness, and it inspired me to do well enough to pass my testing. It was decided that I should stay there for two more years – my brother had been unable to persuade them to admit me to the family then and there, which he confessed to me afterwards was what he had wanted – but I was to continue my studies, only with more tutors, and to go to Eton at thirteen.’

‘And so they left you? In that house, alone once more?’

‘But I was left with hope, John, as well as sorrow, with the hope of new horizons, new life. I comprehended that my birth had been a disgrace to my mother: that my father had certain knowledge that I could not be his child, and so I had been cast away. But it seemed to me that there was some relenting, some pity for me, and certainly my brother seemed kindly disposed towards me. It was clear that Mr Holmes would never acknowledge me: the blow to his pride had been severe, yet it appeared that it had not killed his love for his wife, only engendered a hatred of me. I hoped that in time she might relent to me, I being of her blood at least, and perhaps the get and remembrance of some man she had once loved.’

‘But she did not? Sherlock, my dear Sherlock, my dearest friend. If I had been there, if I had been there to be your solace, how happy I should have been.’

‘You are all my solace now, John. I cannot speak of these things, you know I cannot. But I know now what it is to be cared for - ’ I could not say loved: I dared not, ‘as I never did before. No, she did not. As for my true father – I never knew who he was: it is a mystery to me still, and Mycroft could not or would not say, only that my mother had assured both him, and Mr Holmes, some years back that he was no longer living. It was only with that knowledge that Mycroft’s insistence on a visit to me, and my admission (in part) to the family had been permitted. And I learned much later that there was another reason my mother would not relent to me. I told you, did I not, that she possessed the remnants of great beauty? It was I who had taken that beauty from her: she had been badly handled during a prolonged confinement. There was some damage done when I was born – nerve damage, or I know not what: I am not skilled in these things. Ever afterwards she was forced to regard herself as an invalid, tied to her chair, or to a bed, unable to move but with difficulty, and subject to distressing periods of illness, when she would run a fever and be wrenched with racking pains, until she was worn down to the fretful, bitter woman I had seen, hating me for being both her shame and her grief. And Mycroft told me that when he was a little boy, she had been a laughing, lively, loving woman, witty and sharp – she was half French, you know - a clever horsewoman, fond of the chase, a dancer, an archer - one who delighted in all swift movement, in all active sport. It is not surprising she never loved me: it could not be expected. And it is no wonder, I think, that I decided early on that even were I to find myself inclined towards a family life, I should never marry, to subject a woman to childbearing. It terrifies me even to think of it.’

‘How women bear it, I do not know, they are braver far than we. What you are describing is not uncommon, alas. I can hazard a guess as to her trouble, but I shall not discuss it with you, my dear fellow, at least not now. Only be assured that anything that happened to her with you could equally have happened with your brother – Mycroft, is it? It is a curious name, as is yours, my dear. And is he still alive? For if I am to meet him, I must tell him that I owe him a debt, for his kindness to you. With such an upbringing, your sympathies might have become sadly warped, yet you are a kind and good person.’

‘He is, and you shall meet him, John, in time. I – I did not tell you about him before, because, because - ’

‘ - because to do so would have involved you in long explanations perhaps, that you were not ready to give. I understand you, my friend. As a doctor, I am sorry for your mother though: poor girl, poor desperate girl. I cannot condone her behaviour to you, but those circumstances – the loss of all she cared for, and her husband’s esteem into the bargain, moreover I know only too well what a woman may suffer in childbirth: her injuries may cripple her for life. It is no wonder she was bitter.’

‘But Mr Holmes still loved her, still esteemed her, John, even though she was an invalid, and was forced to depend completely on him. When I was admitted to that house, I could see that he was her all: they were rarely apart. Not a thing was done for her that he was not to do himself, nothing, not an – oh, not a book, a tender peach, a new silk cap, a rose – was to come to her that did not come from his hand. He loved her beyond all else: he was the most devoted of lovers.’

‘Say rather the most jealous, Sherlock. She had been an active woman, you tell me, fond of sport, and dance. And, forgive me, but for you to have been engendered, there must have been some falling away from her husband, some flaw in their love that led her to wander aside. But after your birth there was nothing, only her injuries, and the shame of you – shame would the world call it: rather a blessing; had you never lived, my friend, I would be long since gone, for I owe you my very life – and his constant presence, always there, always a reminder of her transgression, her pains and her grief.’

‘You – you raise thoughts in my mind that – that I did not – not think before John. I thought he loved her, and had forgiven her. Do you say that it is not so?’

‘Not of a certainty, my dear, nor should we think further of it tonight, although we may discuss it another time if you wish. I say only that it may not have been you that made her unkind, and bitter, and that I do not wish you to blame yourself. You were the innocent in this: what you suffered was unfair. I wonder, now, how they accounted for you, when you joined the family.’

‘It was given out, I learned, that not only had my birth ruined my mother’s health, but that I myself was sickly, an ailing, miserable thing, whose wretched life had been despaired of almost from the first, and that I had been sent to Cornwall, where the climate was softer and more adapted to my constitution, there to be nursed tenderly until I should come to health. And it is true, I was subject to fevers as a boy. But the circumstances of my rearing were by no means tender.’

‘No they were cruel. I am unspeakably angry at what was done to you, Sherlock. But it is ever thus in this terrible society: the sins of the parents are visited on the innocent and unwitting children even unto the third and fourth generation, whether it be the hereditary results of vice and indiscretion, or the sorrows of matches ill-made and children gotten outside the marriage bed. It was not you who abandoned a vow, yet it is you who have suffered the most.’

‘It is fortunate that there is not like to be a third or fourth generation in my case, then,’ I replied. I could not prevent myself from yawning. ‘Oh John, I can speak no more. I am so tired. But I do not want to leave you, it is so comfortable here like this.’

I felt his lips brush my hair. ‘Then you must speak no longer, and you must certainly go to bed. We can discuss this more in the morning, or whenever you please.’

‘I will go to bed, but I wish you could come with me.’ I would never have spoken so had my guard not been utterly laid aside. No sooner were the words from my lips than I was blushing and wondering whether I had not better have cut out my unruly tongue before voicing such a thought, but his mouth touched my hair again, lingering a little and he asked me quietly what it was I wanted of him, whether he could do anything at all for my solace.

‘I do not know.’ Tears, shameful tears, pricked my closed eyelids, and I willed them away. ‘I do not know. When – when I was younger, I sometimes wished I had – someone, someone just to hold my hand. When we went to church on Sundays, I saw other children with their mothers, and they would hold hands.’ I yawned again, great, irrepressible sighs. ‘You take my arm, though, and it is very kind of you, John.’

‘Go then, prepare for the night,’ he said, and his lips brushed my cheek this time. ‘I shall come to you when I have seen all tidied away here, and the fire made safe, and I will hold your hand, Sherlock. I will hold it all night if it will comfort you, my dear.’

*****

I was already calling for Watson as I entered our drawing room, hoping that with a case to occupy us, we might return to some pale semblance of normality, but the words died on my lips when I saw him, for he was seated at his desk in coat and hat, scribbling a hasty note, and his carpet bag, packed almost to excess, and his medical bag were by his side.

‘Why are you leaving me, Watson? What has happened; where are you going?’ I could not repress my fear: I had been on tenterhooks since we had returned from Vienna. It was true that he seemed no less fond than before, but I could not forget how I had spoken to him on our last night there, pleading with him to share my bed. It was innocent enough, true: much as I wanted him – desperately as I wanted him - on that occasion I had sought only comfort. And comfort he had given me in tender abundance, until in the morning – but would he regret it, that was the thought that tortured me: would he decide, on sober reflection, and once back in London, that he had first been too complaisant, too caressing, too indulgent of my whims, and then that I was a vile degenerate, to be shunned at all costs? I could not be easy with him: indeed the journey back on the train had been a torment of avoidance. ‘Why have you packed a bag? How long will you be away?’

‘I am not leaving you, you foolish fellow, but only going to the Lestrades’.’ He looked up, smiling, his brow clear, and my heart slowed: not so would he look if he were in truth planning to leave me. ‘And I shall be away at least for one night, if not for more. His wife is ill: the matter hangs in the balance between life and death, but it will go hard with me if I do not save her.’

‘Can she not go to hospital? Would she not be better there?’ I did not speak purely from self interest, although it might be thought so, but from reason: what could Watson provide that a hospital could not? I was about to elaborate on this, when he frowned at me and shook his head.

‘It would be her death. She miscarried – a boy child, I am told, and of six months gestation – two days ago while we were returning from Vienna. She has the childbed fever, and if she were taken to the hospital now would most certainly not survive. The surgeons there will not wash their hands no matter what one says: if I could force each and every one of them to read Semmelweis and Oliver Wendell Holmes on the importance of cleanliness in parturition I would certainly do so. No, the only way to save the poor woman is to nurse her through it, and I can do that better there than here. I am taking Janey with me: she is a good girl, cleanly and gentle, and she and her brother between them will be able to mind the children while their mother is ill: moreover I would not have the poor woman beholden to a man for the most intimate offices, but will teach our girl to nurse her. I am afraid I will be dividing my time between the Lestrades’ and the hospital for a while, Holmes. I did not know where you had gone this morning, or when you would return, and I was just writing you a note to tell you so.’

‘You must, of course, do everything you can for her,’ I said, ‘But - ’

‘Our friend Lestrade’s wife: but of course we must! Do not tell me you doubt it!’

‘No, not at all, it was only – no, it was nothing. What can I do to help you, Watson? Is there anything money can buy – fruit, or some food to tempt her appetite? Clean linen, medicine, more hands to help?’

‘I have used some of the money from our Vienna case, but if you chose to offer . . .’

I handed him a couple of sovereigns. ‘These then, immediately, for the commissariat, to be dispensed as you see fit: and more if you need it. I am sorry if I appeared ungracious. I do value Lestrade very highly, and if anyone can help him in this difficulty it is you.’

‘But you do not see the need for my going, and you would very much rather I did not. Well, I conceive it to be my duty to my friend, and so I will not be swayed. Come, my dear fellow, do not grudge me a chance to be useful. If I can save Mrs Lestrade I will be performing an action of benefit to more than one person: if I selfishly stay with you, I shall benefit no-one.’

He rose from the desk. ‘I have not just a note for you, you know. I was about to beg your acceptance of a trifling gift: you may read it when I am not here, and when I return we will con it over together. And now that I have you here and may compel you to listen, do, my very dear Holmes, pray do stop shying away from me – you are like a skittish colt that will not brook a friendly hand just now – and fretting over whether I am angry with you for asking me to share your bed that last night in Vienna. You have been anxious since you woke up that morning, and it renders you an exacting and difficult companion. I am not angry with you. It is not your fault you have  - adhesive tendencies -  when you are asleep, and it amused me very much to find myself so intricately entwined with those long wiry arms of yours when I woke: I am not used to think of myself as a small person, but I declare I felt the veriest shrimp in the tendrils of some affectionate anemone.’

‘Watson, that is not kind of you! And I  - I disgraced my – I was not in a – a fit – well, you, you, should not have – seen  - had to see – been aware - ’ I turned away, could not look at him, could not continue for the life of me: the remembrance of my unfortunate state upon waking - rudely erect, covers tossed aside in the heat, and my rucked up nightshirt leaving me exposed to his startled gaze as he woke to find himself in my inadvertent embrace - quite overset me. I had wondered that he had not recoiled in horror, but had instead murmured my name in a gently questioning tone. It had been I who had recoiled, bolted away from him, and hastily left the bed to set myself to rights.

‘Turn to me, look up, look at me, my dear fellow. It was never my intent to hurt you with the comparison, it was only a little jest. In the first place, do not feel so ashamed of needing comfort that night. Your story hurt me in the hearing as it hurt you in the telling: I am not ashamed to say that after you fell asleep, I wept for the lonely child you were.  And I am trying to make light of your situation in the morning so that you see there is no cause to be distressed. I thought nothing of it, truly, indeed you must have seen, so close as we were, that I was in similar case myself. It is normal, as I have told you before, for men to wake so. I passed a comfortable night by your side as you have done by mine many a time before, I was warm, and I did not suffer from evil dreams, and should you need comfort again, it will be my honour and privilege to offer it. Nay more, it will be my joy that I may give something back to you. So there is no more to be said.’

And then, when I did not answer, ‘Come, Holmes, give me your hand again. We must discuss this further: I cannot have you so distressed over something so natural.  In barracks, you know there is no privacy at all: we all know that these things happen: one both sees and does not see. If a man has needs he is at liberty to relieve them in quiet decency under the blanket, and no-one thinks the worse of him, but it is all quite easy and plain. Tell me, what must I say to make you feel at ease?’

I took his hand, feeling my cheeks burn. ‘I – you – it – it did - does not offend you that I was in that state? Not disgust you?’

‘No.’

‘B-because it is natural? Because you are a - a doctor?’

‘Because I am your friend, and you are mine. My intimate friend. I am sorry if this offends your delicacy, but when you have been ill I have had, perforce, to, to handle you, you know, assisting you to use the bottle and so on. I would certainly have let no stranger touch you, knowing how shamefast you are, how private and nice in your ideas. So your person is not alien to me, but familiar, and if I may say so, dear.’

‘But – but you, you did not – although you – you have touched – me be-before as a as a doctor, you, you – and you were – were similarly afflicted . . . I could – through your nightshirt, I could see – but you did not - ’

‘Good heavens, Holmes, my dear fellow, what do you take me for? When you asked me to lie with you, I asked you in return what you wanted of me. You bade me hold your hand, and so I did, my dear, until you fell asleep. I offered affection: I did not expect carnality in exchange, and I am most desperately sorry if I offended you by appearing to do so. I would never so demean or hurt you as to do so: good grief, do you take me for a man who would thus take advantage of your situation? Is it in all honesty _thus_ you think of me? I am a rough soldier, it is true, and many a man has sought relief at the hand of a comrade, but I would never force, nay, nor even solicit  such an act, especially not with you, so innocent of these things. Holmes, Holmes, I realise now how it must have seemed to you, that you left the bed so precipitately, but my dear man, you must never fear me. I have never touched anyone unwilling: would not do so for the world.’ His gaze was earnest now, pained, his brow creased. ‘My dear Sherlock, pray believe me. I will be fond and familiar with you: I think nothing of an embrace, or to lie down together for comfort and warmth and the heart’s need, but that you should think that I would take  - force – that I would dare – it is of all things to me the most horrible, that you should think me such a man!’

‘I – I did not – it was not – I do not think - ’

‘No wonder you have been averse to me, avoiding me since that morning! And all my attempts to reassure you that – so you thought I was - oh my dear, my dear, I am so very sorry. That you should think - ’ There were tears in his eyes, he was pale, and his hand trembling in mine: he dropped the small parcel he had been holding, and laid his other hand over mine so that he clasped it softly with both. ‘Pray believe me, Sherlock, do not mistrust me, I beg. I am your very faithful and attached friend. You are my honoured Damon, I a most devoted Pythias. I would never – I will not – I am not – I am not a man who – I am no Moran, Holmes, pray acquit me of such infamy.’

‘I know you are not.’ I could not bear it any longer: all my timid hope that he might, he could have wanted more from me quite dashed. It was as I had thought, that although he might not in principle object to the inverts he met, that he did not shrink from them, was even kind, he was not one himself. I must content myself with milk then, I thought, as my foolish heart constricted: there would be no wine. ‘I know you are not,’ I made myself continue, in a firmer tone, to salvage what must be from the wreck of what might have been. ‘Forgive me, John, I was – I believe we have been at cross purposes. I will not  - indeed, did not - think you – what you are not.’

‘Do you promise me that you will not – not suspect me of - ’

‘ – I suspect you of nothing, but of being my Pythias.’ I made myself smile at him. ‘And I cannot do without him at my side, my dear J – Watson. John. I see have insulted you without meaning to do so: do you pardon me, and all will be well again.’

‘Only if you pardon me, dear Damon: what have I for which to pardon you? That you were cold, and turned from me? I do not wonder at it, given the magnitude of my offence, and you thinking I was such an one as Moran. But will – will you, can you trust me again? To hold your hand, to comfort you? Will you rest with me, in my arms, and know once more that you are safe?’

‘I will. I do.’ I breathed out, thinking. If this was the end of all my hopes. He had said it: he was no Moran who took both men and women. But perhaps I could dare – ‘I trust you in all things, John. You are, as you have said, no Moran.’

‘Thank you.’ He had moved now, we stood handfasted, facing each other. ‘Thank you, my dear Sherlock, for trusting me.’

‘Kiss me, John.’ I made my voice steady, calm. ‘As a pledge of our trust, one in the other, as true friends, as Damon and Pythias. Let me show you that I trust you.’

‘Oh my dear.’ His eyes were bright, liquid. ‘Thank you.’

We stood close already, our hands twined. Just the littlest reach, and our lips met, his mouth gentle against mine - the shape of his fine-cut lips seared onto my memory, the faint, exquisite taste of him a hint, but no more -  and we parted. I put my hand against his cheek for an instant as he moved away, and felt it wet.

‘There. I trust you,’ I told him. ‘I trust you. And now,’ and I released myself for he stood almost as if dazed, made no move to leave me, and I could not bear it any longer, ‘now that we are agreed we are the best of friends again, did you not have a journey to go?’

‘Indeed, I must go.’ But still he made no move.

‘Mrs Lestrade,’ I prompted him, wanting only now to be alone with my agony. ‘Watson, this is not like you: come, my dear friend, your duty calls. We are both happily agreed that we have been very foolish: you to think I thought you a man such as Moran, I to think that you thought I thought so. We are Damon and Pythias once more, and no heart-burning, but all is safe and secure.’

‘Are you sure?’ He looked hard at me, his gaze searching mine to the depths. ‘Are you sure, my dear friend? You do not mistrust me any longer?’

‘I mistrust you only if you are not to deliver that gift you have been teasing me with.’ I could tolerate this intensity no longer, and took a jocular tone with him, thinking to break the mood. ‘Will you give it to me, or will you continue to dangle forbidden fruit above my grasp? I have no wish to play Tantalus, you know.’

‘If you are teasing me again then I believe you do not mistrust me.’ His brow had cleared, a little, although I could see he was slow to believe. ‘And that we may still be as one: true-hearted friends. As for your gift, my cupidinous friend, here it is.’

He put into my hand a small volume, prettily wrapped. ‘Read it in health and happiness, my dear Holmes – it is but newly out, and I thought you might like it. I confess I cannot wait to read it with you when I return. And now I suppose I really must be away; I have delayed too long already.’

‘Wait!’ I clutched at his sleeve. ‘Stay but a moment then, while I see what it is – ah, it is Marius the Epicurean! This is a very handsome binding, Watson, you have been most kind! Pater is not a novelist I know: I am acquainted with his essays, but this is new. I look forward to your return so we may share it.’

‘It treats of true friendship between noble Romans – of love and devotion unto the end in the old way. I am in hopes that it meets your approval.’ He looked down (almost, I thought, as if he were shy) then up at me. ‘And while I think of it, Holmes, might I borrow your Tennyson to take with me? I have not read his ‘In Memoriam’ in this age, and I should like to renew my acquaintance of it.’

‘I shall find it and send it to you directly,’ I promised him. ‘I shall send Billy with it, and we may pay Sam and Mags as well, to be our messengers. I shall miss you, Watson.’ I could say that, and mean it, and know that he did not know how I might mean it. ‘There is a promising case on the horizon, and I was going to ask you to join me in its unravelling. _(How was it possible to speak of such things, when my heart was broken. I had never appreciated that phrase until now.)_ But it is better by far that you should help our friend. ( _And leave me, I thought, and leave me a little to recover myself, and forget that I ever thought you might want me some day.)_ Ask me for anything you need, and let us use the children as messengers; I shall not be happy until you are home. ( _Until I am with you again, no matter what plain fare we must dine on together: better to take milk with you, than wine with any other in the world.)_ And thank you, my dear Watson, my very dear and trusted friend, for my beautiful book. I shall read it and think of you.’

‘Do, my dear fellow. Are you sure I may leave you now? Are you quite relieved in your mind? May I be certain that you do not mistrust, or worse, fear me? Do not fear me, I beg you, my friend.’

‘How could I fear such a gentle heart?’ I smiled at him. ‘You would not hurt me for the world; I do believe it. I wish Mrs Lestrade speedy relief from her travails, and you home soon again. I cannot do without you, you know.’

‘Nor I without you.’ He picked up his bags, but lingered in the doorway. ‘I had almost thought it better to be away for a while – you were so strange with me, and I could not see why: I could not account for your shrinking when we had been so close – but now I know, and all our misunderstanding is cleared away, I am easier in my mind also.’ He turned away, then back to me. ‘Except for leaving you of course. Holmes, you are not to get into trouble while I am away. Do not do anything that carries a risk, my dear, while I am not here. And let me hear of you often. I shall send you bulletins, and do you do the same for me. I trust it will not be too long before I am home.’

‘I will.’ I said. ‘I shall confine myself to my cases, and a good dose of my 6 per cent solution to soothe my nerves and sharpen my mind, so you may be quite easy. I have much to do: never fear for my being bored.’

He smiled, tipped his hat to me in playful manner, and was gone. I was left alone, to contemplate the ruin of my hopes. No, he was not such an one as Moran; Moran, who, he had told me, was a taker and an user of both young men and women. It could not be clearer: no invert he. I would not medicate my grief with morphia, I resolved grimly, for he would not approve of that, and having weaned myself, I was loathe to fall into a dependence again. But my solace would be work, and that in abundance to dull my pain and occupy my mind. If I could not sink into the Lethe of morphia, I would burn bright in cocaine’s Phlegethon, I thought, since at least with that noble drug I would not flame to ash at the last.

*****

‘How does Mrs Lestrade find herself?’ I asked Lestrade a few days later. He looked grey and weary, poor fellow, and I felt for him very much. ‘Watson sent a message last night that he expected the crisis to come, but I have not heard from him yet this morning. You know, Lestrade, you would be better at home: can you not take leave of absence a few days? You look regularly done in.’

He smiled. ‘Indeed I am. But the fever broke last night, in a fine drenching sweat. Doctor Watson said she will do now, if we can get her strength up again. I do not believe he has had his clothes off these eight and forty hours, Mr Holmes, nor has that kind little girl of yours neither. And your Mrs Hudson has been in and out I do not know how many times a day with food for the children, and nourishing soup for poor Annie. I do not know what I have done to be blessed with such kind friends,’ and the tears stood in his eyes as he spoke. ‘I know I shall go a thankful man all my days for it. The children are so young: my oldest, Tom, but thirteen, and little Nan only three: it is no age to lose a mother, and so caring a mother too. Well, that is the second time in these two years my poor wife has miscarried and there will be no more of it. I have my quiverful, as the Good Book has it, but there will be no more: I am not a beast to kill her with more childbearing. Indeed I would have stopped sooner, but she does dearly love her babies, for all that she is sometimes sharp with them. And even that is better now that she has not to worry and fret over poor Polly, and has your Janey’s Jack to help her with the rough work. Why, she has been growing quite young and merry again, quite like the pretty girl I courted those many years ago. I should dearly like to keep her so, now I am let to keep her when I thought I might not.’

‘I am glad of it.’ I was all at sea in these domesticities, but I wanted to comfort him if I  could. My heart was tender just then for those in pain, being in that state myself. ‘Doctor Watson tells me that P-Polly is going on exceptionally well with the rest, and the nourishment, and that the doctors talk of only six or seven months more, before she may go to the convalescent home in the spring. Perhaps,’ an inspiration struck me, ‘perhaps when she goes, you and your wife might go with her, Lestrade, for a little holiday. Should not you like that?’

He laughed outright, much to my chagrin. ‘Bless you, Mr Holmes, I have never had a holiday in my life, barring a day or two out at Brighton with Annie when we were courting. When a man has eight children, he has no right to be thinking of holidays, with eight pair of shoes a year to provide, and eight backs to clothe. Perhaps when they are all grown and gone into work we might think of it, but not for many years yet. Although Tom, my oldest, is to be ‘prenticed shortly, and we shall be looking for a petty place for our Sal in due course. I had sooner keep her at home two years yet if I can spare her the work: I do not hold with sending these little girls out at twelve. Fourteen is young enough to my way of thinking, do you not agree, Mr Holmes?’

‘I know that Doctor Watson thinks so,’ I said cautiously, for I could not accuse myself of ever in my life before having to consider the age at which children went out to work. ‘Indeed he – he has said to me before that he thinks all children should be at school until at least sixteen. He is a great campaigner on the subject, you know.’

‘He is the best man that ever I knew in my life, saving your presence, Mr Holmes,’ returned Lestrade. ‘And I know you will not take that as my casting aspersions on yourself, for the two of you are the best of friends. Why, you are a team: Mr Holmes and Doctor Watson, and so we think of you in the force. Well, well, I must not take up your time like this, whittling on about my own affairs; you are a busy man, and do not come here to listen to me. But I take it kindly of you for asking, Mr Holmes, indeed I do. Now about that case you mentioned . . .’

As I trudged, that night, to my lonely home – and it was lonely, I realised, surprised at myself for thinking so, very lonely without Watson, without the constant presence of Mrs Hudson, without the annoying babble and clatter and laughter of Janey and our band of irrepressible boys, in and out on small errands all the time – I reflected, not for the first time, but perhaps with a greater understanding than before, that I, until but a few years ago an unfamilial, solitary man, was no more solitary: I had insensibly cast off the eremite, and put on the friend, the associate, even the paterfamilias. For the first time I wondered how I had allowed my heart, that cautious organ, to entwine itself with affections, duties, ties, that bound, and steadied, but did not, surprisingly, constrict. I had once thought emotion alien to me. Had striven, in fact, to put it away from me. But it enveloped me now, as if I had woken to what it was to be truly human. And it was Watson I had to thank for it: had I never met him, I would never have known how to feel. I walked home in sober thankfulness, renewing my vow that if I could not have what I wanted, then I would learn to want what I had got.  If Lestrade, a married man, uxorious, having known a wife and fathered children, could put _that_ aside for the sake of his wife – for so I understood him to intend – then I could put aside all my love-liking, all my wanting, to live in pure and chaste friendship with John, without even, blest be the drug that would make it so, even a hint of concupiscence.

So buoyed by my resolve, I returned home expecting a dark house, and cold, and short commons of bread and cheese, and found that our dear Mrs Hudson had left me a splendid supper. Watson, weary and worn, but fresh-bathed and in his dressing gown, towelling his hair dry in the heat of the fire, was clearly intending to stay at home, after five full nights away. When I saw him look up at me and smile in his merry way, his blue eyes full of affection, it was with a deeply grateful and humble heart that I went to him and took his hands, welcoming him home and praising his constant care, repeating to him Lestrade’s kind words. He blushed, and looked away, murmuring that it was nothing, that any doctor of any ordinary degree of competence could have done the thing, and I told him that although his modesty became him well, he must lay it aside, and accept the honour. He moved as if to embrace me, then checked with an apologetic look, but I bent my head, inviting the chaste kiss which, after a moment, he pressed to my brow. In that instant, I believe, each truly pardoned the other for any misunderstanding. He was home; we were together again, and all was well.

*****

‘No, I have not read the Act,’ I replied to Mycroft’s question. He had asked me a few days before to visit – and, unusually, at his rooms, not at the office where he worked, or at the Diogenes - but I had not had the time until this present occasion. ‘Why do you ask? We have been occupied ever since we returned to Vienna – I trust that our resolution of Mr Gladstone’s affair was satisfactory, brother, by the by – for Watson went straight into nursing Lestrade’s poor wife, and I have been much at the Yard: I was endeavouring to clear a few outstanding items away for Lestrade, that he might be able to take a little leave. But in any case, I am not like to have read it, for it is much more Watson’s field than mine. Now I remember though, in the telegram Burns Gibson sent him, he mentioned that it was to be a felony to have to do with a child under thirteen and a misdemeanour to have to do with one under sixteen.’

‘That is so. Your work on Mr Gladstone’s behalf has been noted, and commended. Since he has handed over the burden of leading the government to Lord Salisbury, he is at leisure, and is at this moment on holiday in Aalesund, where in true Wordsworthian vein he declares himself much taken with the beauty of the fjords and islands – or so our correspondent reports from Bergen. I trust he may not come to actual shipwreck in his little boat: it would, however, be preferable to his repeated attempts to ground himself upon the shoals and sandbanks of immorality.  He desires very much to make your acquaintance on his return. Watson did not mention Labouchère in connection to the Act at all?’

‘I am sure you have offered my regrets to Mr Gladstone and mentioned that I am in all respects unfitted for society’s gatherings? I am grateful, brother. No, I do not - I do not see – to be honest, I am not sure. Watson may have done, but I was, perhaps, not attending, and he has been much away at the hospital, and saving poor Lestrade’s wife, as I said. What of Labouchère? He is an unpleasant man: a snake.’

‘Read this.’ He pushed a small slip of paper over the table. His hand, I noticed with some astonishment, was shaking slightly.

‘Eleven,’ I read. ‘Outrages on – on Decency? What has this to do with me?’

He sighed. ‘Just read it, Sherlock.’

‘ “Any male person who, in public or in private, commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures (a) or attempts (b) to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency (c) with another male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted thereof shall be liable at the discretion of the court to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour.” Mycroft, what is this? Where has this come from? This surely means - ’

‘I do not think the treadmill would suit me, nor I long survive it,’ he said, quietly. ‘And I am, brother, most certainly guilty. It is Section Eleven of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, to which Royal Assent was given only recently. I am a criminal now: and so is my – my friend. He is such a gentle young man – affectionate, loving. I confess to being quite – quite hopelessly devoted. And I cannot now think what to do.’

‘You are not a criminal,’ I said, for I could not bear to see him hurt. ‘It is the law is an ass. Is it Labouchère, then who is responsible for this?’

‘The bill was debated over August the 6th. Near midnight, with nearly all having left the Chamber, Labouchère rose to suggest this amendment. It was barely debated; passed on a nod. I cannot even now determine whether Labouchère has a genuine hatred for inverts, or whether this is part of his customary love for obstruction, but in truth it matters little. Any man who harbours tender feelings for another – and displays those feelings for him in public or in private – is guilty of a misdemeanour.’

‘In private! But - ’

‘Was it Queen Elizabeth who said she would not make windows into men’s souls? Under Victoria, we may not even be private in our own homes. This has changed men’s lives for ill, Sherlock. For those of us who love other men, we will never be safe again. Oh, I shall try to have it removed. I will bring pressure to bear. But now that every man who supports the right of men to love men may be arraigned before the bar of his more righteous fellows as an invert himself, and subject to penalty of law, there will be few who will dare to speak out. Indeed to speak against it is to condemn oneself to its judgement. All it will take is an unkind eye, a little fiction, a note that can be misconstrued, evidence of an inopportune gift . . . this law is a blackmailer’s charter. We are none of us safe.’

‘But will it be acted upon? Mycroft - ’ I placed my hand cautiously on his arm - we were not wont to touch each other, but I wished to comfort him – and he patted my hand with an uncertain air. ‘Surely it will be exceptionally hard to obtain a conviction? Men will not, will surely not destroy each other when they are bound in affection: so who is to know what is done behind closed doors?’

‘You have a housekeeper do you not, who hears you speak to your friend? A maid, who makes your bed and notices where your hairbrush is? A laundress, who collects your sheets and shirts and smalls, and takes them away for cleansing? You are surrounded by people with eyes and ears, as am I - and not all of them are friendly. And I did not only invite you here to bewail my own case, brother but to alert you to the perils of your own. You are an unmarried man living a bohemian lifestyle with another man. Have a care to yourself.’

‘But John and I are not - ’

‘My God, Sherlock, if you call him John to any other than me, you are lost. Do not imply an intimacy. Do not allow yourself to fall into an intimacy: it is to damn both him and yourself.’

‘You believe it to be so serious? Truly, brother?’

‘I do. My friend – my Juventus - ’ he looked at the signet ring, caressed it, turning it on his finger – ‘we wished very much to share rooms, as you and Doctor Watson do, but we have decided now that it cannot be thought of.’

‘But – you will not throw him over? You will not part?’

‘No. But we will be – more careful. As will many.’

‘Mycroft, if all the men who currently enjoy the company of other men are prosecuted under this act there will be no end to the lawsuits: an entire new legal service will be required to try the cases. The law cannot be serious, it cannot be – worked – cannot – function. Those men who, who solicit sexual congress with strangers for money – alas, poor Jack Saul: Watson will be grieved for him for the danger: he had a kindness for the young man – and perform the act in public places: that they will be more at risk, I can understand. But men who, who have a place to call their own may do as they please: what harm does it do to any?’

‘Do not succumb to the common fallacy that out of sight is out of mind.’ Mycroft’s voice was sharp: I had never seen him so jolted from his habitual imperturbability. ‘Once prurience catches hold, your private rooms, and my respectability will be no use to either of us. And so we will find, I am afraid.’ He hesitated. ‘Sherlock, I am loathe to enquire, but, may I ask – what is your friendship with John Watson to you? Would it be not better for you to consider parting company? You work with the police - ’ he uttered the word with some distaste, I noticed – ‘and there are many eyes upon you, many to take note. And you work with criminals, with men who have no scruple about what they do. Is it wise to continue? Do you not put yourself at risk?’

I could not believe what I was hearing: almost I might have called him craven, although I knew he was not so. Was he truly suggesting that I should give up my work, my practice, carefully cultivated, my working with Scotland Yard, for a few lines in an act that would, no doubt, be honoured more in the breach than the observance? It appeared that he was, for after another hesitation, he went on,

‘I have in my gift – I am able to obtain for you, brother, if you so desire it, a chair at one of the Universities: the choice would be yours, either Cambridge, or Oxford. A chair of Science, newly endowed by a – generous benefactor. You would thus be away from London, and the scrutiny of the censorious. In one of the university towns, particularly in Oxford, you might be as bohemian as you please, and occasion less remark. I – I could even arrange, if you so desired it, for Dr Watson to be offered a position – a well paid position – at one of the hospitals there. You might – if he is, as I suspect him to be – beloved by you, you might still be together. Still share rooms, and be more secure in them than you can be here.’

‘I will not leave London.’ I stood, looking down at him. ‘I cannot leave London: it is here that my – my life and my practice lies. And Watson will not leave Barts: he is deeply – it is so close to his heart. He frets over his patients there like a – like a hen brooding her chicks or a cat her kittens. You will neither send away nor separate us  - oh, ‘ _he that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven, and fire us hence like foxes’._ I am John’s man, though we never come to it in the end, and he must be mine. Mycroft, it is a generous offer, and I thank you for your care of me – but I must, I must decline. I cannot give up so much of present good for fear of future evil.’

‘Be it so then.’ He stood also, and came around the table to take my hand. ‘You are a braver man than I, brother. I was near to abandoning my – my - ’

‘Lover,’ I supplied, feeling the word resound strangely within me. ‘John is not my – lover – Mycroft – dear God, how hard it is to speak of sentiment, nor you nor I was bred to it – but he is dear to me none the less.  I will not abandon him: do not you abandon your Juventus either. I have – I have never seen you so, so human as you are when you speak of him. Let us both abide what comes, I think. I do not augur as ill of it as you do, perhaps - ’

‘ – I cannot think it augur anything but ill. I know government as you do not. Where there is political advantage to be gained, men are vile. And perhaps I know also how high, how very high this reaches: indeed to the very highest.’

‘You speak of Rosebery? Of Esher or Euston? Of Somerset, of the Prince?’

‘Of them and of others, I do: their amours are an open secret. There are many to be touched by this, and many more to be involved in their fall. And men will accuse others from political animus, who have no moral dislike of the thing. We are about to enter  - a new game: one I like not.’

‘Well, I will play the game with you. I have not forgotten my debt to you.’

‘There is no debt; I have told you before. I could wring only justice from my parents for you, and regretted it could not be enlarged to be generosity.’

‘I have told Watson, you know. Of my childhood. Of the house in Cornwall, and of your visit, of that first light that shone on my days. Of course, I could not tell him how you constrained them to acknowledge me, am never like to be able to, since you have never told me.’ I allowed my tone, rather than my words, to question him.

A wry and melancholy smile. ‘I blackmailed them, brother. Quite kindly. But that is the bitter truth. Perhaps one day I will tell you more, but not now, not now. I am proud of the ends, but despised the means to which I was compelled. So you told your doctor? Am I to meet him then? He is a man whose hand I much desire to shake: you are more content with him than I have ever seen you. You have quite left off the morphia these several years, have you not?’

I have: I take only a little cocaine now: you should try it. I shall send you some, I believe, and you will find it marvellously alleviates fatigue: the most exacting mental labour is a mere nothing with its assistance.’

‘Do, do, I shall be glad of it.’ He shook my hand more heartily than was his wont. ‘If you think you owe me a debt, then you must consider that I also owe one to you. It is of great use and comfort to me to be able to discuss these things, Truly is it said that ‘ _bare is back without brother behind it.’_ There is no-one to whom I can speak of what is on my mind save my dear Juventus, and I would not burden him with all. Can I be of use to you in any other way before we part? Are you in funds? Have you need of aught I can supply? No? Then I must be away to my club: I am already behind my time. When you wish me to meet your Doctor Watson, send word, and we shall all dine together at the Diogenes.’

*****

Watson and I discussed the contentious section of his Act several times, over the following week. I did not have to tell him the news: after he had seen Mrs Lestrade safely into her convalescence, he had visited Burns-Gibson and Moore Agar to discuss the medical aspects of our Vienna visit, and had heard it there. He, like Mycroft, was inclined to take a grim view of it, but I was more sanguine. It appeared to me – from sundry bitter animadversions he made to the matter - that his sense of betrayal was deep, as if his colleagues in campaigning for the act had dealt him a personal slight by allowing this addition. Labouchère, he could not condemn enough for his hypocrisy and malice.  He was still spending a part of each day at the Lestrades, and of course he had his patients at the hospital to attend. But when he was home, I would catch him at odd intervals, his pen arrested above his paper, brow knit, and mouth tight with distress. I observed him closely at such times, but could not divine the tenor of his thought, for it seemed he guarded his eyes assiduously from meeting mine.

On one occasion, as he observed the newspaper – not reading or scanning it, for a surety, as his eye was fixed, and did not travel the lines, I ventured to approach and, placing a hand on his shoulder, asked what news there was.

‘It is all this wretched business of William Stead’s’ he replied. He patted my hand.  ‘Take it - by all means read it, Holmes: I do not have the spirit for it myself. What a mull the man has made of it, all his lying, abducting the poor child Lily – Eliza Armstrong is her real name -  the terror he put her into, administering a noxious substance - and all for a tainted bill. They were in it together, all of them, and that wretch Bramwell Booth of the ‘Salvation Army’ as they call themselves, as well: deep in as anyone. Here is that child’s mother, ‘a very poor woman’ the journals describe her, pleading for the restoration of her daughter, who has been taken here and taken there by people of whom she knows naught, into a country whose language she does not speak. She is barely older than Lestrade’s Sally: imagine his distress if it were his child. Mrs Armstrong, the journalists say, is ‘little above the brute beasts in intellect’ but they should consider that it then follows she must then have a brute beast’s mother-heart for her child.’ He stopped abruptly, heaved a deep sigh.

I took the paper from him, allowing my hand to linger on his ‘You are low in spirits tonight, Watson. Man’s inhumanity to man weighs heavily on you. I wish it were in my power to lift your heart.’

‘You do lift it.’ One hand shaded his brow. ‘You do lift it by your very presence, by your kind sympathy, more to me than you will ever know. But Holmes, I have been contemplating for some days now, since we returned from Vienna and I first – since you mentioned it to me and I first discussed it with Moore Agar – he inquired after – intimated that – and so  – I have to ask this. Do you wish me to leave?’ His voice was constricted: he still would not meet my eye.

‘To leave?’

‘To leave Baker Street.’

Why should I want you to leave? Have we quarrelled, my dear fellow and I not by to hear it? Have we fallen out of friendship, and I all unknowing? Does my Pythias no longer care for his Damon? I have not changed, and not have you. I am sure that you cannot give me even one good reason for our parting. Is this the meaning of those long silences, that furrowed brow, the sighs you heave as you sit over your work? That you are contemplating leaving me? If so, pray tell me what your reason is, for I cannot in the least divine it.’

‘This Act, Holmes. I ask whether you wish me to leave because of this Act.’  He had sprung up and was pacing about the room, his steps short, his hands clenching convulsively by his sides. ‘This Act which makes criminals of men who are – attached to other men. This Act, which casts suspicion on all men who live with  - other men. This Act which is to be enforced by men with whom you work daily. There was an article in one of these wretched rags about blackmail by the police: some wretched woman plying for hire having her little all extorted from her by some corrupt officer. What if – what if we come – what if you come to be suspected of – I could not bear – if you, you, stainless as the lily, pure of heart, if your name were ever fouled in that way, by those who know nothing, and care nothing but turn all to ill. Holmes, you – I could not bear any suspicion to attach to you, that is all. I wondered if – if it were better if I were to – find somewhere – to leave.’

‘Why should it? We are – are not – it is not thus – Watson, if what concerns you is that our friendship is  - is fond, and familiar, do not think of it, pray do not so. There is nothing – nothing in – there is nothing. Stay, are you – telling me that – that Dr Agar has insinuated – has had the temerity to - ?’

‘No, oh no, it is not that.’ He halted, and I could see that he was groping for words. ‘He only mentioned several men he knew, men of good standing, who had chosen, in the past few days to sever connections that – that have existed happily and, safely for a long time, men whom he has seen unequivocally to be  - attached to other men – whom he knows in fact to be – it is that ‘in private’ that concerns him greatly. In private, Holmes, in a man’s own sanctuary.’

‘I have always wondered if Moore Agar is an invert himself,’ I said, carefully, for it was plain that he was struggling to explain himself without betraying a confidence. ‘Burns-Gibson is a family man, of course, but your other friend, I have no real doubt about. Has he – has he found it necessary to, to - ?’

‘He is resolved to go on even as he always has: his - friend is a man of some eminence, and they believe they are safe – for now. And to answer your question, he insinuated nothing, only warned me to have a care as if he wondered whether I might merit the warning. But it is a sorry state of affairs.’ He was leaning on the mantlepiece, looking down into the small fire we had there – for it was chilly, although barely the end of August. ‘Would you prefer me to find other quarters, Holmes? I know we are not – it is, it is not like that with us, of course, but if you wish it, I will make arrangements. Not happily, I confess,’ he lifted his head and looked at me for almost the first time in the conversation,’ not leave happily, that is, but I would, I would happily do anything for your sake, my dear – fellow.’

‘Then do not leave me.’ I held out my hand, hating to see him so sorry and diminished. ‘Will you come to me? Please?’

He crossed the room in a rush, and his grip on my hands was painful in its intensity.

‘I cannot do without you. Do not leave me, John.’ I told him. ‘Stay by my side.’

‘I have no desire to leave you, Sherlock. My dear Damon.’ He winced suddenly. ‘Oh my God. No. I will not think of it, not of Kirwan and Cornwall. It was our usage before ever we heard of them. It is just that, with this addition to the Act, the sorry affair at Dublin Castle, has been much in my mind of late. It is not just O’Brien and his Irish newspaper who waxed eloquent in their condemnation of the men who – loved – other - oh, if there were only a term, for this. One cannot always be using some periphrasis, and I will not call them buggers as is the common cant, or sods: these are terms of opprobrium, and not to be used. But in any case, a word for men who love other men and express that love in physical congress, as other men might with a woman. The jackals of the English press, when they were done reprobating the intransigence of the Irish, also complained that there was no punishing this unnameable sin if the act stopped short of coitus. And Labouchère was foremost among them, I recall. This is his doing, snake in the grass that he is. And he an adulterer, and a begetter of illegitimate babes! He to be a moral arbiter, he to hold us up to a standard! He is a hypocrite of the first water.’

‘Before all else,’ I said to him. ‘do not let the memory of unkind words foul what is ours, my gallant soldier. We have committed no offence, transgressed no law, broken no code. While you were away, I read in the book you gave me. And I found there what was said of the love between Marius and Cornelius, what was recorded of Damon and Pythias, and both entirely apposite to us, a record of a friendship that would do all, suffer all, endure all. Not a friendship of the senses, but a friendship of the soul. And for your – comfort, perhaps - I believe the men themselves, in this country, generally refer to themselves as Uranians, as well as inverts. There is a word in German, _‘homosexualitat’_ but it is not in common usage here. Carpenter, I believe, prefers ‘Uranians’.’

‘I heard these terms in Vienna, it is true. And they are terms I like, for they do not refer to the act, but to the way men are: they describe men whose first loves are men, and so they remain. Loves, not lusts, not acts only. Then I shall adopt Carpenter’s usage: for he is a man of excellent sense, a kind man, and accepting of others. You comfort me, Holmes, as ever.’

‘As do not you, me, or not yet. Swear you will not leave me. John. I am anxious until I hear you vow it, that you will not abandon me.’

‘I will - I will not bring you into harm, or put you in danger, Holmes.’

‘Sherlock. Say ‘Sherlock’: it is to Sherlock you make the vow. And you must leave it to me to decide what is danger. I tell you: “ _he that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven, and fire us hence like foxes.”_ Promise me.’

‘And so Lear and Cordelia went to their deaths? I will not bring you into harm, or put you in danger, Sherlock. But equally, I will never abandon you.’

‘I think you qualify your vow: it does not reassure me.’

‘I will never abandon you, Sherlock.’ A pause. ‘Are you content?’

‘I must be.’ I wanted to cling to him, to embrace him and never let go, to fold him in my arms, to sleep twined with him, our bodies bared to each other, our hearts beating as one, so precious now our intimacy seemed, so dear, so desperate, so threatened. So impossible. But I must play the man – at least to outward seeming, and so must he. We shared a bed that night – I beneath, he above the covers, my head on his shoulder, his arm about me. I lay quite still, quite still, so that he should think me sleeping, and he too hardly stirred, barely heaved a sigh. But in the morning, I saw that neither of us had slept, for dread, I think, of what might come.

For myself, I knew that I wanted him, and loved him, and could not have him now, not plainly and simply for love and joy, as others might do with their loves, but must always be on the watch, guarding my step, my face, my words, for fear of some spying other, some inexplicable hatred that might smile, and then destroy us.

For him – I did not know, and could not ask. He guarded himself so well that I could not tell. I did not believe him to be an invert, he had said he was not like Moran, and so all my hope of that was gone. But that he loved me, and was kind, and would hold and comfort me, that was much, and more than I had ever hoped for. And I knew that he had courage to do so, for it was he who, deep into the night, had come to my bed, and without speaking lain down beside me, gathering me into his embrace, hushing me with a finger to my lips, his mouth against my hair, as he whispered to me to lie easy, to rest, for he was there, and would protect me.

*****

It is a strange thing, long-continued sorrow, and the hope that will soften its ruins is stranger, for though sorrow would try to beat it down, it springs like grass trodden underfoot. Though it be crushed, it will lift up its head, humble and resolute and say ‘I am here, do not you abandon me, and I will not abandon you. Break me down utterly, grind me into the very dust, and I will yet grow green and fresh for you, so only you give me the chance.’ It is eternal, hope; it will not be gainsaid.

And so, like many that Autumn, we learned to live with the Act, a Damoclean menace, hanging over our heads. It did much harm, there were hearts broken for it, and confidence betrayed. It did much good. I will not, cannot deny that it did much good. The latter half of the year after it saw more progress made on protecting children – we had now even a Society for the Protection of Children – than ever before. Watson was glad of that, it smoothed a line from his brow even though other events caused more.

In what remained of August  it was politics that occupied him: he had an eye to the machinations of the great powers, having been a soldier and seen men die for them, and we spoke often of what was taking place in Europe and in our theatre of unrest – I will not say war, for it was not yet war – of Afghanistan. Shortly after we had left Vienna, the Czar and Czarina had met the Emperor Franz Joseph at Kremsier: this rapprochement between the two greatest imperial powers, Watson considered to be a concern, for he believed that the intentions of a combined Russia, Austria and Germany could not but be unfavourable to Britain. Although, he told me, the Russians had agreed, earlier in the year, to withdraw from the Zulfikar pass, they were advancing on Herat, and he maintained that they could in no wise be trusted, their entire aim being to render the regions around India and Afghanistan unstable, so that Britain’s hold on her imperial possessions might gradually be eroded. Certainly the reports of Russian influence being brought to bear in Turkey and Persia continued to be alarming.

I assented to his remarks – and listened to him into the bargain, for he was an astute commentator, with an intelligent manner of parsing and analysing the reports he read, - but I was more concerned, myself, with charting the machinations of Adam Worth. Worth’s traces - as I agreed with the lugubrious Inspector Shore – could be seen everywhere: if there was a jewel theft of significance, I could have wagered on him being involved. September brought a case – in which I was involved, through my former association with Julius Wernher - of diamond theft in Paris. One Henry Fabre, a diamond merchant of hitherto unblemished reputation, approached two or three Parisian merchants of diamonds, asking to be lent jewellery on approval to take to Marseilles, to be shown to a Greek prince there, about to be married to a daughter of one of Marseilles’ most wealthy families. The exquisite parures duly lent, and transported to Marseilles by this well-known and trusted merchant, they disappeared thence into thin air, as did their bearer -  and all in all, when the complete number of merchants thus robbed was discovered, diamonds to the value of sixty-six thousands of francs had vanished. The Greek Prince of course, did not exist.

 Wernher had brought this case to my attention because letters written by Fabre (who, unfortunate man, had certainly died shortly after repairing to Marseilles with his cargo of diamonds) had been found. They required the skills of a cryptanalyst, and he had recommended me. I was grateful – it was a pretty little problem which took my mind away from other, more painful thoughts, and I solved it all the faster with the aid of my trusty cocaine. I had vowed to myself that I would burn in Phlegethon, rather than choke on Lethe’s sullen waters of grief: the ciphers intrigued and amused me, and so I spent several days with them, hardly pausing to swallow the tea which Watson insisted on pouring for me or the toast he put into my hand. Sleep, thanks to the cocaine, I could well do without: especially when I was able to chart quite clearly the traces of the mysterious ‘Navigator’ of whom I had first heard in Antwerp. I had thought, and so had Shore and Lestrade, whom I had insisted on involving, that Worth was the moving spirit behind all, but now beyond his bluff and plausible figure, I discerned some greater moving spirit, a shadowy eminence.

Through all of this Watson followed with pained attention the progress of the case against Stead for abduction of the little girl Eliza Armstrong, whom he had memorialised as Lily in his ‘Maiden Tribute’. I endeavoured to prevent him from seeing too much, but sadly, the case had caught at the popular imagination, and was  - one can only say lavishly – reported, with great indignation against the supposedly righteous people who had made the little girl a means to their ends. He and Lestrade grew confidential together about it, for Lestrade was tender of heart, having daughters himself, and for Watson, every hurt child wore his little sister’s face.

For myself, I was sick of Stead, and Bramwell Booth and the canting, psalm-singing hypocrites of the Salvation Army, sick of gutter journalism and the twisted morality that could, while it argued for little girls of thirteen being protected from assault, harry one of their number throughout France escorted by a young Salvationist man of ‘piety’ who might have assaulted her while she was in his charge as effectively as any virgin-hunting roué from London. The Bow Street magistrates committed Stead  and his accomplices for trial, and Stead’s entire shoddy dealings  - and they were shoddy indeed – were exposed to the world.

‘I am done with all of them, ‘ Watson said to me. ‘I shall not join any society or organisation again, but keep my own line and, follow my own counsel. To deceive a man who is your colleague, your friend, your associate is one of the vilest things on God’s earth; there is nothing that can excuse it. I respected Stead’s crusading zeal, Mrs Butler’s virtue and Bramwell Booth’s godliness. It is not virtue or godliness to make a little girl afraid in pursuit of some high purpose and to treat her like a pawn because he can. For all Booth claims to be a man of God, he has lied and manoeuvred like a criminal. I have had enough of all of them.’

‘It is the little girl’s, Eliza’s, letter from France that has so upset you?’

‘Yes.’ He looked up from the paper. ‘That little, ill-spelt rhyme she wrote to the mother she mourned and longed for from a foreign country where she had been taken without her will. “I thought of one, I thought of two, but most of all I thought of you.” Poor lost, lonely child: it breaks my heart. And Stead calls her a modest, pure, honest little girl, as if he did not himself put all those things at risk. I am not a religious man, Holmes, but I will say with the Saviour that whoever harms one of the little ones, better it were for him that a millstone be put around his neck and he be drowned in the depth of the sea.’

I went to him, and took the paper gently from his grasp.

‘Be angry, Watson. Be enraged, let it sharpen your purpose, nerve your heart. Be angry that you associated with these men who took foul means to fair ends: I too loathe the smug hypocrisy with which Stead has maintained that he was forced to do it, or he would never have carried his point. But do not be angry because you think you are tainted by association. You are not. And cease to reproach yourself, I beg you: it does nothing but harm. Do you not think that the same anger burns in my veins when I see wrong done to the innocent? And that I do not look at those I have not helped and feel remorse for my shortcomings? I know this pain, it is mine also.’

He looked up at me. ‘If I did not have you to – to talk to, I think I would go quite mad. The enormity of wrong crushes me when I can do so little about it.’

‘You have done much, and you will do more. Take heart: there is truth behind what you say about Stead, and you do not state more than is the case when it comes to the means men will use to achieve their ends. But think, Watson, are you being wholly rational about this? Your nerves are disordered, my dear friend.’ I grasped his unresisting hand, and pulled. ‘Stand up, John. You have been in this low mood, this gloomy, despondent frame of mind since we returned from Vienna, and learned of this change to the Act. Your spirits require support: it is not surprising. To sit in an armchair and read the papers and moil and fret as you are doing – you have done nothing but worry from the moment we returned. You spent nearly a week at Lestrades in the most trying circumstances, and then you have had to bear this, which you see as a betrayal.’ I put my arms around him. ‘Let me hold you.’

He did not repel me, but moved closer, until we touched from breast to hip. I tightened my grasp, willing him to understand my love for him, my devotion. ‘You must cease this pointless repining: it saddens you too much. Let me prescribe for you, Doctor. We shall take a walk, and let the air blow the cobwebs from our minds, then we shall repair to the baths, and after we shall return home and read. You are not to think of that vile case again today; you may be the strong soldier, the gallant campaigner again tomorrow, and fight all you will. I shall help you: you must let me be your companion in this battle. But for today and tonight, you are under my command, and I say you shall think no more.’

He rested his head against my shoulder, sighed, and I felt the tension leave him. ‘I am sure that anyone who knows us believes that it is I who doctors you, Holmes. I bind your sprains, and bathe your wounds, and tend to your cuts and scrapes. But sometimes - ’

‘Sometimes it is you who need the doctoring,’ I finished for him. ‘I am honoured that it is to me you turn, that I can heal you. The circumstances of your life have taught you to despond: I see that, and I understand why it is so. But the circumstances of mine have taught me to hope, and I say, my dear John, that you must never give up hope. Remember what Monte Cristo said to Maximilien in his despair, and do not give up hope.’

*****

‘Not that waistcoat,’ I said to him when he came downstairs. ‘Wear the grey satin with the indigo figure; it becomes you better.’

‘Oh very well, but I shall be another ten minutes if I must change.’

‘We have just time, but hurry, Watson. I would not miss this concert for anything.’

Watson’s mood had improved since those dark days in September; his mind had regained its elasticity of tone and the natural calm of his temper had been restored. What he had said to me then was true, that although he doctored me, and cared for me, although he tended me both mind and body, when his spirits required support it was only I who could restore them. I had wondered when he first came to live with me – nearly five years ago: could it really be possible – at the fact that he had appeared to have no friends: I had wondered at it all the more over the intervening years when I saw how genial and kind he could be, how men and women were drawn to his warmth of character, his openness of spirit, his generosity. Mrs Hudson, loved him like a son, to Lestrade he was a good, honest comrade in arms. Children adored him. But it was, I realised over that dreary autumn, only to me that he gave his confidence. If he had woken in me the heart to love those people whose problems and puzzles and difficulties had once been to me merely an intellectual challenge to be solved, then I had returned him a heart in which to repose confidence, to which he might speak his mind. I had never fully understood the depths of his reticence until he began to confide in me, and now that he had begun I saw how much he yet concealed.

‘That is better.’ I smiled at him as he appeared at the bottom of the stair, slightly flushed, wearing the waistcoat I preferred. ‘Now I am not ashamed to be seen with you.’

‘I should not be ashamed to be seen with you if you were in rags: really, Holmes, you are ridiculously particular. What is so important about this concert, that I must peacock it like this?’

‘The programme is exciting, with all the music I like best: and Richter a brilliant conductor. And I am not in the mood for sobriety tonight: I expect an intellectual feast. It will be dazzling, and so you must dazzle too.’

‘Now you really are ridiculous.’ He was laughing; I so loved to make him laugh. ‘Old soldiers do not arrogate to themselves the privilege of dazzling: that is the prerogative of consulting detectives. You are looking particularly fine tonight yourself: the silver grey suits you.’ He offered his arm. ‘May I escort you to the St James’ Hall for our concert, my dear Mr Holmes?’

‘By all means, my dear Dr Watson, I shall be proud to take your arm. But first you had better precede me down our stairs: they are too narrow for two men abreast.’

The concert was all it had been promised to be, a banquet for the senses. It opened to the stirring strains of Wagner’s Kaisermarsch, with its beautiful Lutheran hymn of ‘Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott’ woven in and around the instrumentation in intricate counterpoint. Richter, the celebrated Wagnerian conductor was in most excellent form: with masterly touch he drew out every nuance, down to the most delicate gradations of light and shade of every piece.  Beethoven’s Egmont overture – as I explained to Watson in the interval, for he did not know its story, the tribute of the composer to Lamoral, Count Egmont who had valiantly taken a stand against political oppression – was a feast for the intellect, although it did not move my senses as did the Wagner. Watson thought highly of it, however. We sat pressed close together on one of the dear old, uncomfortable, long, narrow, green-upholstered benches (with the numbers of the seats tied over the straight backs with bright pink tape, like office files) and he smiled at me as I sighed over the cor anglais in Berlioz’ Carnaval Romain, its delicately-stepping entry ushering in the lively tambourines of the saltarello in a well-painted depiction of carnival high spirits. Schumann’s Symphony in D minor proved a sombre counterbalance until its sonorous brasses blazoned the final: a meeting of Apollonian rigour and Dionysian ecstasy. The highlight of all and the final _bonne bouche_ of the concert was the last scene, of Tristan und Isolde, the Liebestodt, or love-death, of Isolde. The strings shimmered and swelled in wave upon wave of voluptuous sound; pulse after pulse of exquisite pleasure seduced the listening heart. I had never heard music of such powerful sensuality: one felt it viscerally and not just with the ear or the mind. Throughout the piece, nothing could have exceeded the care taken by Richter to draw out each thrilling cadence: it could not have been better rendered. I shivered under the onslaught, the hairs on my neck erected, my heart pounding. Watson was intent upon the music also: his breathing responded to its urging, becoming fast and light as the music approached its climax. A light dew pearled his brow: I could see the pulse bounding in his throat, his hands clenched into fists, feel the striving tension with which he followed each approach to the transcendent climax, the strings mounting ever higher until they reached their peak . . .

One final, exquisite beat, one thrust of the conductor’s baton, and the music ended softly, plaintive in sated chords, all passion spent. Watson bowed his head, his tears falling. I flicked surreptitiously at my wet eyelids, and gave him my handkerchief. After a moment, I felt his hand steal into mine, press it and I turned my grip to enclose his.

‘I do not think I ever heard anything so glorious. So sublime – Watson, I am glad you are with me.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Nor I –  and I would not wish to be with any other. I have never – I have never understood why it is said that many people dislike the strong, and sometimes painful sentiment one experiences listening to Wagner. But for me, it is a catharsis: he releases emotions I scarce knew I had, and their echoes remain with me for hours. He thrills me as no other composer has ever done.’

‘It is the same for me. I cannot express - there are no words. I can only feel.’

The applause under cover of which we has exchanged our few words did not end: the conductor appeared again and again as the audience clapped and cheered themselves hoarse and the orchestra rose and bowed. The excitement was extraordinary. For myself, I lay against the back of the sofa, feeling the reaction come upon me, my elation ebbing like the long tide that withdraws by little and little, leaving only a fret of foam upon the dulling sand.

‘You are weary now,’ Watson’s voice was low and tender. ‘I wish it were possible to transport you instantly to our rooms, Holmes, and to give you the silence you need.’

‘We could perhaps wait a while? Until the crowd diminishes and this wretched hubbub dies down. I always want silence after music, the better to let it sink into my soul, and yet I must endure this cacophony. I would that we were in a church or temple, that quiet contemplation might be the order of the day.’

‘Sit there and close your eyes: I will wait with you, and then when the noise has died down, we will steal away quietly so you may rehearse the music over again in your head without interruption. I shall not disturb you: you may have your contemplation.’

‘You would not disturb me, Watson. I may be alone in my own mind with you, and yet feel your companionship. Of all gifts a man can be given, it is the most precious, to find solitude and comfort in one and the same person.’

The crowd had diminished, and Watson bade me rise, taking my arm to lead me to the door. We had just attained the open air, when a gentleman accosted me.

‘Good evening Dr Watson, Mr Holmes, I trust you enjoyed the concert?’

‘It was delightful, Sir Henry was it not? I did not know you enjoyed music.’

‘I love a Wagner concert above all things: and this one was sublime, splendid – a feast for the ear and the senses.’

‘Indeed it was, Sir Henry.’ I collected my scattered wits, which had been wool-gathering amid the remembered brass and strings, to utter polite nothings to Sir Henry Thompson, an acquaintance of Watson’s with whom I had had some discourse on an earlier occasion in the year. For all his erudition I was wishing him to an untimely end, for I did not in the least wish to make small-talk, but to preserve in my mind the exact phrasing of the first violins during the Liebestodt, so that I might try them over again for myself. It appeared, however, that it was not rhapsodising over the music that was his intent, for he turned to Watson.

‘I wonder,’ Sir Henry went on, ‘if you would allow me to introduce to you a colleague who much desires to make your acquaintance. He is well known to me, through the University: a man of great intelligence, a mathematician, whose treatise on the binomial theorem won him great acclaim. He was for a time at one of the smaller universities, but now resides in London, where he is engaged in writing some grand and probably extremely abstruse work on astronomy.’

‘By all means,’ Watson turned to me, and I endeavoured with a glance to implore him to spare me any further conversation. ‘I shall be happy to accompany you to meet your friend, Sir Henry, but Holmes here has the migraine and would be better in the dark. Holmes, if you will take a cab home, then I will follow you.’

‘I would sooner wait for if you do not mind, Watson. I am feeling a little faint.’

I shall just oblige Sir Henry then – do you sit down there, Holmes, and I shall return directly – that is excellent, and then, Sir Henry, if you would like me to shake hands with your friend, we might perhaps arrange another meeting at a more convenient date. Does your friend require my professional services, may I ask? Because I am not taking on paying patients at present, I am afraid, but I have excellent colleagues to whom I can refer him at need.

‘I believe not, he made some mention of a mutual acquaintance you have in common; I cannot recall the name just now. But here he comes, so he may explain himself to you to better effect than I can. Dr Watson, may I introduce to you Professor Moriarty of Kings College London, an admirer of your work in the free wards and among the poor. Professor Moriarty: Dr Watson.’

‘Dr Watson.’ The voice was smooth, cold, courteous. ‘I am not only an admirer of your work, Sir. I believe we also have a mutual acquaintance in Colonel Sebastian Moran.’

It was the man who had been standing with Moran at our previous concert: he against whom I had felt an instinctive revulsion arise in my breast. The slow, reptilian head movement was the same, the stooped, ascetic mien, the domed forehead. But the Professor’s deeply sunken eye gleamed now with no kindly light, and when Watson extended a friendly hand to shake the claw offered to him, that eye burned brighter and fiercer yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes to Part 12
> 
> The Holmes cipher depends on the day and the month. This verse of “How Horatius Kept The Bridge” – one of Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome, has 31 plus 12 words in it. The day of the month, shown by the writing date encoded in pin-pricks on the first sheet e.g. 9.6 for a letter written the 9th of June, indicates the start letter of the code and the month indicates its skip. So for code written on 9.6, the ninth word of the verse is ‘the’, with the start letter ‘t’. After counting out 31 words for the days of the month, the sixth word after them is ‘fathers’, with the first letter ‘f’. ‘T’ therefore encodes to ‘f’ – on the ninth of June at least. 
> 
> The alphabet used is also augmented with five different symbols for the 27th, 28th 29th, 30th and 31st. When encoding, the first of these symbols is placed before the ‘a’, the second and third before and after the letter corresponding to the day date – so in this case before and after ‘I’, since that is the ninth letter of the alphabet; and the fourth and fifth before and after the month date – so in this case before and after the ‘f’, since this is the sixth letter of the alphabet. This makes the whole code rather more random. If a letter is written on, e.g. the 30th of the 10th, then the symbols still sit in order before the ‘a’ before and after the symbol for the 28th, and before and after the letter for the 10th.
> 
> These symbols are counted as letters when calculating the skip code. By writing the date backwards (6.9 for June the 9th, the writer can instruct the reader to use the final letter of the appropriate words (e) and (s), so that an alternative option for a letter written on the 9th of June would encode ‘e’ to ‘s’
> 
> Sir Percival Molesworth Sykes was still a young man at this point, but went on, tutored by ‘Sigerson’ to become an extremely able spy and diplomat. 
> 
> Richard Burton, celebrated traveller and explorer, posited the existence of a ‘Sotadic Zone’, encompassing areas around the Mediterranean and in the Near East, where male-male love was not disliked. His Thousand and One Tales, was published in 1885, and will feature in a future chapter.
> 
> Holmes’ accusations against Moran are all matters of historical fact. 
> 
> Moran’s take on Nietzsche is similar to that propagated by the philosopher’s sister, and made popular among the Nazis. Holmes is correct when he says that that it not quite what Nietzsche meant.
> 
> The ‘widow of Windsor’ was Victoria of course. The ‘wool-sack’ sits under the Lord Chancellor’s chair as a reminder that the wealth of England was built on wool.
> 
> Watson correctly suspects that Holmes’ mother suffered from obstetric fistula, which was a common problem after long labours – and still is today in parts of Africa.
> 
> Holmes and Watson are completely at cross-purposes here. I hope that exactly how they are is obvious.
> 
> Watson gives Holmes a book that deals with intense and passionate friendship between men, one of whom dies for the other, and asks Holmes if he can borrow a book that records the mourning of one male friend as a spouse by another.
> 
> Lestrade’s musings are important. Remember what he says.
> 
> Mycroft is correct in his suppositions about the effects of the Act of course. Section 11 of the Act is quoted in full.
> 
> There was at this point no fully realised conception of what it meant to be ‘gay’: the act of sodomy or sexual acts between men were one thing, the lives of men who loved men another. 
> 
> The Paris diamond case is correctly dated and referenced. Worth was behind it, of course . . .but why?
> 
> The Liebestodt has often been compared to a musical orgasm: contemporary audiences found the sensuality of Wagner’s music extremely disturbing.
> 
> Moriarty . . . I invite you to speculate about why it was Watson he wanted to meet.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience. There is some drug use in here, and period typical homophobia (Not Holmes to Watson or Watson to Holmes)

Since First I Saw Your Face Part 13

**_My dear Sherlock,_ **

**_The first part of Sigerson’s travel journals is published in the Pall Mall Gazette and has been well received. You would smile, I think, to read what is known about him, of his journeys, his ideas, even of his person, and to see how eagerly his rare dispatches are scanned. An enthusiastic letter from a certain Percival Molesworth Sykes of the British Legation at Shiraz, and his account of a stimulating after-dinner conversation with the celebrated explorer, illustrated by one of Duclos du Hauron’s new ‘photographs’ (of our obliging cousin Vernet) but adds to his authenticity. I do not believe your friend, Watson, has seen the account as yet: he suffered a relapse after rising too soon from his sickbed, and has been very low. He is unable to leave the house at present, but today, since he is more lucid, I shall send a copy round for his perusal, and myself follow it to know his reaction and reassure him. Your Mrs Hudson, poor woman, wept on my shoulder several days ago, fearing he was like to die, but he has been well attended, and is now truly on the mend. The influenza has been as bad this year as ever I have known it: I am sorry it carried off his wife, the more so since it was he, first stricken after attending a patient, who transmitted it to her._ **

**_Our adversary, Moran, was last heard of on the road to Baghdad, where he has, for a time, thrown in his lot with those Turkish mercenaries engaged in the persecution of Armenians in that region. We hear terrible things of their troubles: after you have visited Teheran to keep your rendez-vous with our agent, Mactear, who is there ostensibly to look into the petroleum supply, it will be necessary for you to travel to Baghdad, there to assess the situation (Baron Nolde, the celebrated Russian ‘traveller’ is visiting: it is our thought he and Moran will meet). You may then take the road to Angora, where our agent (one Mr Henry Arnold Cumberbatch, appointed to its legation and even now on his way thither) will be in post to receive you and send you thence to Constantinople. I hope I may then be able to release you from your tasks, and speed you home to us for Christmas: if ever a man has deserved a Christmas at home, you are he. And I am sure, although your true actions may ever have to remain secret, Her Majesty’s gratitude will be liberally and thoroughly conveyed._ **

**_You know your task in Persia and Turkey, brother; it is to determine which of our diplomats have money owing to Moran, or have been blackmailed by him and are therefore susceptible to being suborned to act for Russia. No matter on earth is of more importance at this moment: our situation in Persia is dire, and we are pressed by the Russians on every side. It is a great relief to me to have you, on whose loyalty and competence I can completely rely, to guide the ship of state as my proxy, and ensure she is not sunk by the hand of condign treachery. On that subject, by the by, you will, no doubt, (after your experiences in Bushire) be pleased to know the lamentable Taylor has been relieved of his office and succeeded by a safe pair of hands._ **

**_I do not underestimate the struggles you undergo, my dear Sherlock, indeed, I am very sensible of them. I know how dear your friend is to you, and how much you and he suffer from being apart. Rest assured that once returned all of my not inconsiderable power will be deployed to ensure your safety. I keep, as you requested, your boys well fee’d as well as fed, and find their sharp young eyes more useful than many an adult’s. Should Watson escape the benign surveillance of his domestics, they will at once be able to find him for me; you need have no fear on that account._ **

**_I remain, dear brother, most gratefully, affectionately & respectfully yours ..._ **

**Holmes slams the letter down on the table with considerable annoyance: it is of no comfort to him that Mycroft is grateful, and for the further gratitude of Queen and country he has neither respect, nor any desire. Five thousand, two hundred and eighty or so miles separate him from the man he misses to the point of madness - an innumerable number of days’ march; weeks of journey by camel, or mule or jogging horse, by jolting cart or rickety wagon; months of poor food, and hard lying, and intrigue and treachery. He is sick to the soul of it all, weary to death. Is he the patriot Mycroft thinks him, he asks himself, or merely a man who cannot choose but be  - reluctantly - loyal to the kind hand which took him from misery and gave him a life in the world? He has none of Mycroft’s sense of duty to a greater authority. Like Moran he cares little for the Widow of Windsor, swathed in her black, mourning the loss of both gentle husband, Albert, and surly retainer, Brown. He knows from Mycroft’s previous dispatches that the Queen takes a deep interest in her overseas possessions: of India, the jewel in her crown, she is inordinately proud, favouring her Hindu servants above the British and causing no small heart-burning thereby. He is very sure her gratitude for his helping her to keep her ‘jewel’ could take tangible and generous form – but he cares for none of it, wants none of it, only to pay his debt to his brother, and return to a decent obscurity, John by his side, to have and to hold until their death.**

**He picks up his pen, steeling himself to the work. He will not, not, he thinks, give in to his sorrow -  for if he does, he may never return. He will not fail.**

**_My dear Mycroft,_ **

**_Your letter found me at storied Isfahan, on my way - to do your noble bidding, of course - to Teheran. It had been some days on the road: the state of the Persian telegram and post is notoriously bad; indeed on our journey here we have found the wires looped haphazard upon drooping poles, depending from fragile sticks which their weight bows to the ground, and, in places, cut and removed by the enterprising inhabitants of the district to tie up carts, bridle animals or hang washing._ **

**_If you are wondering why I have not advanced further it is because I was detained in Shiraz during the period of the riots, (of which you are no doubt aware from our Teheran legation) and hence could not leave until the situation had calmed. The wretched populace were alarmed at the dearness of bread, for some of them their only food, and rioted against the authorities accused of forestalling it. The bazars were closed, and a large crowd gathered at the telegraph office – which is why you have not heard from me – expecting a reply to their petition to the Shah that Gavan el Mulk should be stripped of his role of governor, and a more lenient head appointed, one who does not favour the Paharloos (of which tribe the said Gavan is head). No hostility was shown to the English, but we were obliged to retire some distance for our own protection, while soldiers who were sent to clear the riots sided with the hungry mob and exchanged fire with Gavan’s men. At length, however, upon a reassurance from the Shah that they should have redress of their grievances, and his recalling Gavan el Mulk to Teheran, the rioters dispersed, and all was calm._ **

**_Further investigation upon my part, and that of Sykes – who bids fair to be an ornament to your service, my dear brother: he is an able and energetic young man of noteworthy intelligence – proved without a doubt Moran’s hand behind all. He effectively would have delayed me from leaving the place had not my own physical weakness done so._ **

**_In any case, your letter eventually found me at Isfahan, where I rest a day or so on my way to Teheran after an encounter with a most picturesque group of bandits, one of whom I was obliged to disarm with my own hands. I relieved him of his weapons, quite amazed at the number of knives he had secreted about his person, and he cursed me roundly in both Arabic and Farsi for an infidel dog, a cruel oppressor, and a degenerate son of Iblis._ **

**_I returned him, in what Farsi I could summon to me, and he sitting the while upon my legs with my hands at his throat, the argument that I was indeed a son of Iblis according to the Sufis’ creed, who hold, as Rumi says, Iblis to be the manifestation of the great sins of haughtiness and envy, cunning also being from Iblis, and love from Adam, but I was not alone in this, for so were all men blinded by sin, not only the infidel._ **

**_He agreed with me Iblis represented the principle of hubristic intellect; ruined by pride, he only saw the outward earthly form of Adam, but was blind to the Divine spark hidden within him. I countered him with Hasan of Basra, who holds Iblis was the first who compared himself to another to his detriment, this causing his sin: the djinn being the one who first showed how love could cause envy and who suffered the anxiety of losing a beloved. It was maintained by Hasan, I reminded him, that Iblis alone among the djinni and angels was the pure lover of God in refusing at the divine bidding, creature of flame as he was, to bow down before Adam, God’s unworthy creature of common clay._ **

**_My bandit wept - and I wept also, for mere melancholy and weariness and the sore longing for my John – a ceaseless longing -  and agreed with me all men were wicked, and Iblis, for his constancy and devotion to God, would be redeemed on the Last Day; whereat I returned him his knives (all save one which he offered me as a token when his band departed with a fair division of our silver and all of the guns). (We were sadly outnumbered, and hence had to give some ground, but they were gentlemen in their bearing, and not impervious to the sweet tone of reason; moreover young Sykes could argue the hind leg off a donkey – or a djinn.) He must have imbibed Farsi with his mother’s milk, so sweetly does it flow from his tongue._ **

**_But I reflected all the way here to Isfahan, brother, that I am no being of flame, no bandit, nor no philosopher neither, but merely a weary and ageing man, much torn about and beset, past his best years – and even in those I had no show of beauty (forgive my vanity, I pray you) of person or character that a man might love. And despite these inadequacies it would seem I am – if not beloved, at least held fondly, closely, dearly, in the remembrance of as good and kind a man as ever stepped . . . and yet it will be many long miles before I see him again, if ever I do._ **

**_Ah, brother Mycroft, this game is not worth the candle. There is nothing, nothing on this earth you can give me in recompense for the fact that I must leave him lonely and be lonely too. For earthly honours I care not a jot: ‘si me dignetur quam desidero, felicitate Jovem supero,’ and what is the gratitude of Queen or country compared to that? Why cannot I tell him of my presence? Why cannot I call him to my side? I am but half a man without him. ‘For with but half a heart, what can life do?’ he wrote, and I too have but half a heart. I must tell him I am alive. You cannot gainsay me._ **

**Holmes puts down his pen and seals his letter: it will return with Sykes to Shiraz, while he himself continues on to Teheran. The tone he has adopted with Mycroft belies his real state of mind – he is sunk deep in a black pit of misery - and he has concealed the fact that before he disarmed his philosophical bandit, the man had blooded him: he has a slash across the upper arm he has sutured himself with boiled silk thread and a needle, not wanting to cause alarm, or be forced to delay. He has dressed it with spirits of wine to ward off infection, but a deep, hot sensation in the muscle augurs ill.**

**‘Enter,’ he says to the knock on the door, and Sykes strides in. ‘I have your dispatches for you, and so must wish you a good journey back to Shiraz. I trust there will be no delays.’**

**‘It may cost us dear again if there are,’ replies Sykes. ‘I cannot thank you enough, Mr Sigerson, for all you have done for us. We would have been sadly astray if it were not for your intelligence. Even in Isfahan: had you not apprised us of the movement against Zil-us-Sultan and the Russian influence behind the rise of Wali Ahud, we would have lost our position completely. Fortunately our man, Preece of the Telegraph Office, who has been granted the new consulship here, is experienced in the ways of the country, and will do better than any new recruit out of London.’**

**Holmes smiles a little, and Sykes has the grace to look shamefaced. ‘Oh, I too am young, I know. And quite new to the Game. But I love this country, as well as my own; it is a source of endless fascination to me. And I was trained by the best, Sigerson, by Younghusband himself. He is in Chitral now, as no doubt you know, following in your footsteps. Where do you go after this, if I am allowed to ask, Sir? By Tabreez to Angora and Constantinople and so back into Europe? You will take the road, and not the steamers? The Euxine has been as unfriendly as her name this season: more than thirty ships were sunk in this last winter’s black storms.’**

**‘There is no secret about my journey, or not from you at any rate. I am sent to Teheran, yes, and then to Tabreez, but thence I am directed to Baghdad, and so north to Damascus and Aleppo before Angora. Moran is on his way to Baghdad. I am not to meet him again yet, but to follow and observe.’**

**‘He has sworn to destroy you, Sir: I beg you to have a care. The cornered and wounded tiger is the most dangerous.’**

**‘It is strange you should say that.’ Holmes coughs a little. ‘The air is dry today, is it not? He was once a soldier of note, you know, and was noted for his courage. He crawled down a drain after a wounded tiger and shot it. But there are some trees which after growing straight for a while suddenly take a curve and grow crooked. He is one of them. I would he had never taken to evil ways, for he could have been a good man. But he is insane now with the conviction that he is above all others; it is an unaccountable delusion, and a dangerous, for he answers to no need but his own, and is moved solely by whim and chance. A man without loyalty to any but himself is a man who cannot be trusted. Were I Russian even, I would not trust him.’ He coughs again. ‘Sykes, I would be grateful if you would send me some iced sherbet or cooling drink of that sort, for I have had a thirst upon me all day.’**

**‘I do not think you are yet fully recovered from your fever, Sir, and I am sorry your journey is like to be extended. But I beg you to have a care when you go into the Sultan’s domains in Arabia, for the month of the Hajj is almost upon us and there will be many on the roads. And there are already reports of the cholera travelling with them: Persia is clear at the moment, but there begin to be rumours of the disease in Mecca and its environs - and great talk of enforcing quarantines.’**

**‘I shall not be in that area: there was some thought I might travel thither and on to Khartoum, but the need is more pressing here. It is Persia, and Russia’s involvement in Persia, and her meddling, that is our greatest threat. England’s greatest threat,’ he amends conscientiously, cursing himself. Of such like slips is disaster made, he thinks, remembering his alias.**

**‘But you are at least partly of English heritage are you not?’ Sykes’ smile is sly, but not unfriendly. ‘There is something in your voice, your manner when you speak of England  . . . a longing . . . One homesick man recognises it in another. It is hard to mistake – Mr Sigerson.’**

**Holmes cannot but laugh. ‘I predict a great future for you, young man, but do not overreach yourself. Allow your agents their secrecy, I beg you; it does not to do enquire too closely into their private lives.’**

**Sykes accepts the mild rebuke. ‘I may not see you again then, Sir, but allow me to say it has been a privilege to work with you. And I am grateful.’**

**‘Well if I am let, if the occasion arises, I shall tell you who I truly am, Sykes. I may have a desire to travel in Persia again sometime: if you have not been seconded to the further reaches of Empire, I should be glad to trespass upon your hospitality _in propria persona_. We were interrupted in our most interesting investigations into the tomb of Cyrus at Pasargadae by the untimely irruption of our larcenous friends, and I have no time to go back now but must press ever onward. I should much like to visit Persia with a -  a good friend of mine, and to experience the country’s delights as well as her dangers. Although perhaps they are inseparable.’**

**‘I shall be most happy to receive you in your true character, Sir, though alas, I too fear one cannot separate Persia’s delights and her dangers. And your friend would also be most welcome: that you may delight in the roses and nightingales of Shiraz together. But for now, may your journey be prosperous, and come to a fortunate end. And I shall pass on your compliments to Sir Ernest, when he returns from Chitral.’**

*********

**From the centre of Isfahan, its beauty now marred by neglect and decay, Holmes’ road leads out past ancient mounds of bones, past the Safavid pigeon towers, some seven hundred years of age, their cells inhabited by darting swallows and the blue rock dove. Flocks of these doves, smaller and slenderer than London’s city pigeons, wheel about the towers morning and evening, their wings lit by the low or levant sun. Their crooning, melancholy calls follow him as he passes through groves of mastic  - the terebinth trees of old -  onwards to the blue-stone and brick caravanserai of Mader-I-Shah, where he will join one of the many British caravans carrying opium, tobacco, silk and cotton to Tabriz. He stops to scrape ivory tears of resin from one of the mastics: powdered and applied as an antiseptic, it will, he hopes, relieve the inflammation in his arm.**

**On either side of his road, the last of the poppy crop blows in the fields: the purple-blushed petals have fallen, and the immature seedheads are everywhere tended by workers who incise them with thin lines so their milky sap will flow. Tapped into copper vessels it will be dried, compressed into cakes of opium, and transported about the country, its production rivalling in quantity and quality the opium of India and Afghanistan. That of the best quality, containing between ten and twelve per cent of morphine, will be exported via Bushire to London, where, Holmes thinks, it might even be used by his doctor; a tenuous link between them. What is now being harvested will arrive before he does, for it takes a direct, and he a circuitous, route.**

**He halts again on his road to beg a handful of the cut poppy heads, wrapping them in a scrap of silk and stowing them away. The opium and hashish he brought down from Thibet was long exhausted before Shiraz, but his satchel is now full of it, and he welcomes any opportunity to replenish his supply upon the road: he can scarcely do without it now; his evening gateway into dreams, and his diurnal respite from pain. He makes a mental note to buy a plentiful supply in Tabreez, where it is much traded, before he rations it out for himself along the route home. In Constantinople, he hopes to obtain cocaine: it is not to be found in these lands where the poppy reigns supreme.  As well as opium, he carries bhang, as the Persians call it, the hashish-resin for smoking, but these drugs only quiet him, they do not give him the fierce exaltation that cocaine brings; its exhilaration of rapid and inerrant thought.**

**He rides silently, hands lax on his Bakhtiari mule’s reins, ignoring his escort. Sykes’ men, sent to deliver their erratic charge to the caravanserai before re-joining their master to return to Shiraz, are dull dragoons of British mould, sullen and out of place in this country. He has nothing to say to them nor they to him. At the caravanserai, they part with barely a word, and he makes his way to the caravan he is to join: fifty powerful, one-humped, grumbling, belching camels of Khorasan, carrying their six hundred pounds of baggage apiece for a steady twenty or more miles a day.**

**They are loaded with strong, sweet tobacco, those camels; with dyes of indigo for clothes, and crimson for well-kept beards or the tails of horses; with a white Muscat-sweet wine, and rich dark wine of Isfahan to please the delicate palates of Teheran - whose native red is, according to Sykes, noticeably inferior; they bear opium (some adulterated for the Chinese market with sugar and starch and grape syrup) and waxy tears of mastic; gum-tragacanth and gum-arabic; fragrant galbanum and opoponax; purging colocynth and scammony, strong-smelling asafoetida and that luxurious sweetmeat called gez-angebin which is produced around Isfahan -  ‘gez’ being that manna of the Hebrews which is said to be an exudate of leaf-sucking aphids, and which, falling everywhere (as honeydew from lime trees in England) is confected with almonds, pistachios and rosewater into a substance resembling nougat of Montelimar. They are loaded with bales of cloth and cotton and every sort of dried fruit - dates, cherries, plums, apricots, figs and peaches; with carpets of velvet and shawls of silk; with felted wool blankets for swaddling the cherished horses of Arabia against the chill of desert nights, and with the grey-curled, close-shorn pelts of newborn lambs to be made into winter hats.**

**In and around the caravan’s noise and bustle, Holmes moves in a lonely dream, a feather on the stream of its activity, carried resistless on its road. He has long since stopped smiling; converses no more than necessary: muscles hardened by long riding, he endures the mule’s mile-eating pace with patience and fettles his animal in the evening himself when needed. He betakes himself to rest in whatever stop is made, with his knife in hand, his door barricaded, and a plentiful silver bribe to whichever merchant seems most amenable that he should not be disturbed from his opium dreams until his morning’s hot milk chases the drug away and he goes on again. He eats sparingly, a handful of dried fruits at night, a pocketful of sweetmeats during the day, meat rarely. He is lean, and sickly, and burnt brown by the weather, his clothes the commonest weave of the country. Even his grey eyes do not distinguish him from the people he travels with: Alexander’s men ranged wide. Around his neck as he travels, is a kalemdan, a lacquered and gilded pencil case. In it, always under his hand and next his heart, wrapped in stained silk, is a piece of writing: the thoughts of one, Doctor John Watson of London, who has written that he loves him.**

*********

**From Isfahan to Gez, three farsakhs, about twelve English miles: from Gez to Mursakhar six, or twenty-four. It is hot, and dry, but the going is good: the level plain past Gez, filled with fruit trees, allows for a canter, and Holmes and a few others outpace the caravan, allowing the slow camels to catch them up later. He retires as soon as he reaches Mursakhar, bolts his door, and carefully takes out Watson’s writing to read. He falls asleep with it clutched in his hand, and in the morning his sweat has smeared the ink. It is no matter: he knows it by heart now. ‘Since to live after thee were but to die, for with but half a heart what can life do.’ In the morning he cannot remember his dreams.**

**Six more farsakhs to Bideshk, and the little telegraph station at Soh - and the road begins to rise from the plain: ridge after ridge of dark mountains lies before him as he travels north. The following day, after a troubled, broken night, he presses on up into the hills to an altitude of eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty feet, the highest point of the journey before the downward turn to Kuhrud. The villagers here speak an odd dialect, containing many archaic words and idioms, but they are a kindly and hospitable folk. Amid the cool airs of the mountain, in a little house of the many built in ascending tiers up its side, above orchards of walnut, pear, plum and apple trees, he sleeps more soundly and naturally than he has done for some weeks. The elderly woman in whose house he stays offers him food for his coin; fruits stewed in honey, a flat, oily bread, and white cheese, with the sour ewe’s milk that is all she has to drink. A sudden hunger takes him: he eats greedily, breaking his near four-day fast, eats until sated.**

**From Kuhrud to Kushan, seven farsakhs: nearly twenty-eight downhill miles of turning aside into bushes every hour to relieve an imperative looseness that racks him with cramps and makes him sweat and writhe. Even the great dam across the Kushan valley, designed by Shah Abbas to provide his city with water is spared no more than a glance. No sleep that night as he lies in the caravanserai at Kushan, and it is not just with cold he shivers in the morning after tipping a black, indignant scorpion, its tail angrily seeking his hand as he casts it aside, from one shoe. On again, his rope belt tightened, his bowels griping, empty, sore. The much decayed glories of Kushan, the city reputed to have been founded by Zobeideh, wife of Haroun el Rashid, pass him by: the exquisite palace of Fin, with its fading murals of past kings, the leaning minaret of the city itself; the city’s heart, where silks, satins and velvets are displayed in soft, jewel-toned abundance in the bazars, and the air is filled with the constant tap and clink of the coppersmiths’ hammers, working sheet copper (brought from England) into every kind of domestic utensil imaginable.**

**On from Kushan to Sinsin, six farsakhs; a gradual descent to the small caravanserai, ruined by the Turcoman invaders at the end of the last century. Cold winds, for all that it is nearly the end of June, and he shivers, sleeping muffled in woollen shawls. From Sinsin to Pasangun, seven farsakhs, the track winding through a long, arid pass amid the dusty range, down stony, stream-rutted tracks to Pasangun, and the doubtful comfort of the caravanserai. Before he turns in, he goes to the post house: there is nothing for him, but he indites a missive to Mycroft nonetheless.**

**_I am at Pasangun: in four days or so I will arrive at Teheran. Let there be news for me, I pray you, for there was none here. Send letters, observations – something of his writing - whatever you will, only so that I hear of him, about him. I am so alone. Whatever the outcome of this, brother, I shall not be the same man when I return to London. These mountains, this solitude, burn deep into my soul. I used to love to sit and think of London, its myriad inhabitants, its busy streets, as my home, the place in which I was most at home. I fear I will never do so again. You would laugh to see me, ragged, thin, brown and dusty, stained by the soil of the country, steeped in its waters, even as one of its native inhabitants. I wonder whether I would know what to do with a top-hat; you may laugh at me, but it is so. What will I be fit for when I return? Nothing – or at least nothing that I was used to. Send me word: send me aught you have. You spoke of a photograph purporting to be Sigerson: can no mercy send me one image of my Watson? He is clear to my mind – too clear, and ever-present - but I question whether he grows dim to my sight, I who thought my sight itself would dim before I forgot him. Have pity: let me but see his face, so if I die I can look on it, can say his name with my last breath._ **

**From Pasangun to Kum, four farsakhs; an easy canter along the plain on a good, fast, little mule, the plodding camels now several days behind their advance guard. But there is nothing again at the post house.**

**In Kum, the city of Fatimah bint Musa, sister of the most holy Imam Ali Reza, Holmes sees the mosque of her shrine, two gilded domes and five minarets piercing the brazen sky of noon. Around it are nearly four hundred imamzadehs, their conical, blue-tiled roofs sheltering the bones of hundreds of holy men whose dust lies near to one of their holiest places. Some are in good repair; others bear great nests upon each broken roof; the storks that inhabit them preen, and clatter their bills as their unruly offspring gape mute for frogs and snakes. No Christian and unbeliever may enter the mosque -  Holmes merely traverses its exterior, looking in at the gateway to the immense quadrangle with the tank for ablutions at its centre. To go further would be to profane it, as have at least three Englishmen to his knowledge, but he will not so, both from respect, and for fear of the consequences for his mission. It is no part of his remit to cause offence after all, whatever others have done.**

**Enormous wealth has been lavished on Kum, for here are the tombs of kings, as well as the Holy Shrine, sarcophagi of marble, of alabaster, inlaid with ivory and ebony, and sweet camphor wood. Outside the shrine, the city is thronged with pilgrims, the caravanserai, a long vaulted building with both parallel and transverse supplementary aisles is more busy with people, with camels, donkeys, horses and cattle than anywhere he has yet seen. He takes refuge in a dark little room, with, hanging in it, a long-necked cooling jar of water. He is assured it is well water, not water from the river, and has no choice but to drink it, for a feverish thirst is on him, and he cannot eat, but takes opium to still the pain in his stomach, and bind his bowels.**

**From Kum to Rahmetabad, six farsakhs; another day, another endless plain, the mountain of Demavend and the Elburz range, grey shadows in the distance. After Rahmetabad, the crossing of an immense, arched bridge, the work of giants it would seem, before arriving at the new caravanserai of Manzarieh, its tiled roofs glorious in the setting sun and the emblem of the Lion and the Sun proud on its walls. Another night, sleepless.**

**From Manzarieh, now onto the carriage road to Teheran, and smoother, faster going on fresh mules, the camels left far behind, not to be seen until he has been in Teheran some days. From Manzarieh to Pik, travelling alongside a stream improbably saturated with salt, salt in the air, salt in the water, salt scum, crystalline, glittering along the stream’s edges - and thirst, all he feels is thirst, intolerable, harsh. At Pik, great Demavend is no more a grey shadow, but a presence looming above him, ever-changing, never-changing, itself robed in snow, the Elburz lightly garlanded with it, and both taking a different light every quarter of an hour, through pinks and greys, deepening in every shade of rose and saffron and gold, until the light dies and the day with it, and Holmes stumbles into the chapar-khaneh to sleep his opium-sleep in a room with open windows, and no bolt to the door.**

**From Pik to Robat Kerim, a straggling village with a filthy ditch down the main street, six farsakhs, through undulating hills of no beauty or interest, and over a dull, disconsolate plain of Dantean malice, the burning plain of sodomitical sin as it were, where, feverish and fretting, Holmes, whose mind has been tormented by erotic images all night, imagines all day Watson’s likely response to his perversion - love being one thing and licentiousness another. In a filthy room in the filthy caravanserai, he sinks into another night of dreams in which he pursues Watson through obscure and grandiose halls, tapestried in hidden meanings, where subtle echoes mock his calls, and he listens in vain for the voice he craves.**

**From Robat Kerim, to the Hamadan gate of Teheran, three farsakhs, plodding dully through the plains on his weary mule, crossing the narrow stream of the Karji by a single-arched bridge, then four farsakhs, sixteen good English miles to go, to be endured, step by jolting step, bone by aching bone, before he is traversing the city, before he dismounts stiffly at the gate of the legation’s summer building in Gulahek cursing every one of the extra miles he has had to go from south to north of the city, before presenting his credentials to Sir Frank Lascelles, the Ambassador, before demanding, with no delay and scant respect for the man’s office, whether there are telegrams, letters, anything for him from London.**

**_My dear Sherlock,_ **

**_I have made arrangements to send out to you by diplomatic bag a picture of Dr Watson: it will arrive shortly. I was forced to resort to subterfuge to obtain it, for it is in fact, a painting of the cabinet photograph he had done upon his marriage. I am sure you will find it a faithful likeness, it is copied by an individual in my employ whose business is to forge documents, and for his accuracy and fidelity to detail, I can myself vouch. You see that I do not take your requests lightly.  As for your native habits, it is to be expected that a period of adjustment will be required once you are returned to civilised society – good heavens, I shudder to think of what you must endure – but I can only reiterate that in return for this service you have done Queen and country, you will be refused nothing, and no duties further will ever be required of you. Hint only of what you want and it will be yours._ **

**_I understand your desire to have Watson with you – and I agree, my dear brother, that you are better together – but it will not do. Firstly, by the time he is recovered enough to travel out to meet you, you would be returning; what use then to have him by your side? Further, he has not your skills, but will be a blunt, soldierly Englishman wherever he goes: there is no dissimulation in him. He could not pull off a deception to save his life – or, rather more to the point, yours._ **

**_I visited him a few days ago, and inquired whether he had read the Sigerson papers I sent him, and on his telling me he had not, recommended them most earnestly to him. That evening I received a telegram, with a blunt request to know whether he was being practised upon, whether you were in fact, alive, and if so, how the deception had been carried out. I returned answer that I had received these papers to publish from a source of impeccable integrity, that I had by various means assured myself of their authenticity, and that I was, myself, in no doubt of their provenance. I told him I presumed, moreover, that there might be hidden meanings in them of which I was not aware, but silence might be necessary for the safety of a man we both held dear. A further telegram merely assured me of his discretion: since then I have heard no more. He begins to get about his room again, but is, I understand from Lestrade, who has visited him on more than one occasion, painfully weak, and has not yet ventured outside the house._ **

**_I will send you more as I can, dear brother, but I urge you most earnestly not to engage in correspondence that can only be detrimental to both your mission, and his peace of mind. Do you want him journeying to you half-demented by grief and wholly diminished in health, only to fall into Moran’s clutches? You know how Moran hates him. We cannot afford it on any account: let it not have a chance to come to pass. Be patient, wait out your time, and your rewards will be commensurate with the magnitude of your sacrifice._ **

*********

‘Holmes, we must read this: do look, my dear fellow! It is a new novel by Stevenson, whose ‘Treasure Island’ I so enjoyed. ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’: surely the eponymous protagonists must be friends as we are. I do so love a stirring tale of adventure. You will not refuse to read it with me, will you?’

‘Of course I will not.’ I replaced my violin in its case as Watson bounded through the door: I had no case on at the moment, and had been whiling away an idle hour with improvising on a theme by Paganini, trying if I could outdo the great master in intricacy. It was becoming a frequent solace to me, for Watson was much occupied with his hospital work, and cases were thin on the ground in this first month of the new year. ‘I did not much like Treasure Island, it is true, but one may hope for better, certainly; moreover one should not dismiss an author because some of their works do not please one. What it is about?’

‘I cannot tell as yet; it is only just out this last day or so and I have seen no reviews.’ He came to sit on the arm of my chair, and I placed my arm around his waist to keep him steady. His arm went round my shoulder and we leaned together, reciprocally entwined. ‘I thought to go to Paternoster Row after my hours at Barts, to see if there was anything new at the bookseller that you might enjoy, and Longmans pressed this upon me, saying that it was not much seen as yet, but they hoped for its future success with the public.’

‘I shall not object to reading it, but may I remind you we were to begin Racine’s Phèdre, now we have finished Monte Cristo? Your French has improved markedly: I have hopes you will not butcher his noble alexandrines, so much more sonorous than Shakespeare’s pentameter, moreover there are those Arabian tales by Sir Richard Burton which we have not yet read. Watson, surely it has not taken you all this time to return from Paternoster Row: I expected you quite thirty minutes ago.’

‘Indeed it has not.’ He passed a hand though my hair, smoothing a lock that he clearly deemed to have fallen out of place. ‘There, now you are point-device again; that is better. I am happy to begin on Racine when you please – we might read concurrently, perhaps, alternating a night of English with a night of French, and for the Arabian Nights, any time will serve. We might take one as a _bonne-bouche_ (you see I am versed in the idiom now) before our serious Frenchman. You need not deduce my steps, by the by; I had something to collect from Harris’s in St James’ Street, and so went by the Strand. Did you think I had forgotten your birthday? I am sorry this is a few days late.’

He delved into his overcoat pocket, and brought out a parcel, which he handed to me with a flourish. ‘It is a small enough gift my dear fellow, but it comes with all my affection and goodwill. I trust you will like it, for it is formulated with bergamot, cedar and neroli, which I know you favour. And I bought more of their own lavender water, which is of a superior quality: we had very little left, and I like to have it on hand to soothe your headaches.’

‘It is delightful, Watson, I do thank you.’ It was indeed delightful, and I leaned back into his encircling arm to enjoy not just the fragrance of the new cologne, but of his scent; fresh air, tobacco and wool, and underlying it the healthy warmth of his flesh. ‘But I thought the very beautiful ebony-headed stick you bought me for Christmas was to serve as a birthday present also.’

He laughed, a little self-consciously, I thought. ‘I – well, I wanted just to . . . it is only a small thing, Holmes. I do – I do love to choose gifts for people I  lo – well, for my friends, and I have not many to lavish them upon.’

‘You are too generous.’ I looked up into his eyes to find him gazing at me with such affection that my heart turned over. I could neither repress an answering fondness in my own expression, nor maintain my gaze when his hand brushed my cheek. My own brow was heated, and my collar too tight, suddenly.   

‘One cannot be too generous with the dearest fellow in the world.’ He tightened his clasp around me, then removed his arm – I felt cold immediately - and stood up. ‘I must bathe and change my clothes if we are to read; I like to be comfortable, and today has been one of those days when I feel to have been steeped in the filth of other people. I should not even be near you in this state, let alone embrace you. We dine in today, do we not?’

‘Mrs Hudson speaks of roast partridge and bread sauce. I believe there is a port wine jelly for pudding, a Stilton cheese, and I could open a bottle of Beaune.’

‘Excellent! Make up the fire, Holmes, and find the afghan for the sofa. I shall not be very long. It is foul weather out there; I am so glad you have stayed in today, and been warm and at your ease. Your cough still hangs about you more than I like.’

*****

We had passed a quiet autumn and winter, Watson and I, snug in our holt like two creatures that wait for a storm to pass. What that storm was, we did not know; nor from what airt its winds would blow to chill us. Perhaps it is inaccurate to say ‘we’, thus including Watson in my fanciful anxieties. There were some things of which we did not speak, so I cannot speak for him.

One of our silences was the strange episode of the young man we had sought for, and found, weary, worn, famished under a bridge by the Thames. The friend who had asked us to find him, a handsome young chap with anxious eyes, had oscillated on the pavement for a while before making a dash for our door. Ensconced in our drawing room he had hemmed and hawed again before disclosing that he and his brother shared rooms with this youth – Housman by name – and that the lad had disappeared. He admitted, when pressed by Watson, that there had been a breach – that Housman had, as he put it, become too fond, too affectionate to his brother, that he did not know entirely what had happened but Housman had disappeared, vanished, and been absent some days now. Cautious enquiries proving that he had not simply returned home, the brothers were at a loss as to what to do, and having learned of me through an acquaintance at the Turkish baths, the younger – Adalbert Jackson, by name - had thought to come ask my aid. His brother would not stir in the matter, he told me, maintaining that to do so would be to condone their friend’s illicit affections, that he was best left alone, and would come home in due course. ‘But I cannot let it rest, Mr Holmes, Dr Watson; what if he has done away with himself, and we are to blame?’

It had taken only a day of searching by the Irregulars, once furnished with his description, to find the lad, but it had taken more for Watson to persuade him back to 221B, and some time to calm and inspirit him enough to go to the home which could no more be home to him, there to make what he could of his broken life. Watson was unhappy for weeks afterwards: I could not console him, but he railed against the evil in men’s minds, and about the Act, before suddenly silencing himself on the subject, and refusing to say more.

For myself, I quailed inwardly to think of what had been the sad result of this poor young man confessing an inordinate affection for his room-mate – a situation with which I could only too sharply sympathise – and resolved that no action of mine should ever lead Watson to suspect me of such. For a while he was withdrawn and strange with me also, and I felt the loss of his warmth – the caress to my arm or shoulder, his hand on my hair, his arm around me – so I redoubled my attempts to seem unconcerned over Housman’s case. It did not last more than a few days, for which I was thankful, and then he was almost fonder than before, but I held every touch doubly dear after his brief withdrawal.

The Criminal Law Amendment Act was much in our minds. November and December had brought to our knowledge several cases of indecency trials resulting from the new Act: it was universally cried out upon as being itself the reason why there were so many cases brought, one judge even going so far as to say that the publicity given to the ills of prostitution and the abuse of young girls and boys had brought the crime before evil minds so that they were more inclined to the practice. I did not agree with him – good heavens, who would not want the perpetrators of abominable crimes against children to be brought to justice? – but I saw it was now infinitely easier to blackmail man or woman. An accusation, it seemed would do it.

The same was said about the sodomy cases that occurred – that there were more of those now - which I did not find surprising. For myself I was, while aware of them, more occupied in building up, along with those cases of blackmail we had noticed previously, a pattern of jewel thefts -  in London, in Manchester, in Scotland - which marked the presence of some overriding power, a directing mind prescribing method, and offering means. There were too many jewel thefts, it seemed, more than there had been for years. I wondered at it without yet being able to determine whether it was, in fact, Worth, for whoever it was hid his traces well. We had identified some of his accomplices – there were many – but had not the clue to undoing him. And it seemed to me there was more than one involved, a web of crime encompassing the country. As for the spider at the centre - I had not yet found him.

William Stead stood his trial, and was committed to prison in November for his part in abducting Eliza Armstrong – to three months without hard labour: ‘A disgrace,’ Watson had said, angrily throwing the paper from him after he read the verdict. ‘Why should he receive only three months, in consideration of his standing in society and the supposed purity of his motives, and Louise Mouret, who examined the child to certify her virginity, be given six with hard labour on the mere supposition and no proof that she was a professional abortionist? Where is the justice in that?’

‘Men do not like to recognise other men’s hypocrisy,’ I told him, retrieving the crumpled sheets from the floor and smoothing them. ‘There were those in Parliament who did not want the trade in young girls exposed, and it having been exposed, they are angry with the man who did it, for it shews their actions in an unfavourable light. Some are abusers themselves. They would punish Stead more severely for exposing what they wished concealed, but he is everywhere hailed as a hero, and they may not, for fear of being seen as supporting the trade in children. This sentence is a balancing act, between rapping Stead over the knuckles for his sensational journal’s acts, and not incurring the censure of those who want a purer public life. Stead is not being punished for the action towards the little girl, Eliza, so much as for his dragging this scandal into the light, when men want their women and  children ignorant, so they might be deemed innocent. Many in parliament would rather it had never been raised at all: it matters little to them how the children of the poor might suffer, so long as their own actions are not questioned or arraigned.’

‘It is wrong, and you know it is wrong.’

‘I do. As for the child, her rights are almost ignored in the outcry that her case has conduced towards the general good; that she suffered so others might not. But Justice Lopes has been sufficiently severe upon his character to satisfy even you, surely?’ I looked at the trial report. See, he says to Stead “I cannot forget you are an educated man, who should have known that the law cannot be broken to promote any supposed good, and that the sanctity of private life cannot be invaded for the furtherance of the views of an individual who, I am inclined to believe, thought the end would sanctify the means.” Does that condemnation not satisfy you?’

‘Only partially,’ he had said, before holding out his hand again for the paper, ‘since he is not truly punished for it, but has used it to make himself a popular hero; see how he basks in the adulation of the uncritical. And I notice he expresses no remorse for what he put the child through, but treats her as if she is a mere nothing, a pawn in his sanctimonious play. Moreover, the verdict does not address the inequality: when will there truly be justice under the law that does not favour the rich man? It is corruption and I hate it. I tell you, I shall never have to do with any of them again.’

In the same month too, we travelled to Norfolk, that county of reeds and slow-moving water, and open skies, on a case that Lestrade had asked us to observe. A certain young man, Mark Knights by name, had been accused under the new Act of unnatural crimes. His accuser then withdrew the accusation before it had been sworn to, and offered no evidence in support of it. Knights admitted sodomy upon oath before a magistrate, and implicated two others – against whom there was no evidence either - in his crime. The judge in the case, Mr Justice James Stephens, an old friend of Lestrade’s, received us with some gratitude, and owned to a measure of perplexity, for, as he said, there existed no evidence against the man, Knights, other than his sworn deposition - and the fact that he had given evidence on his sworn oath of having been accomplice to an act of unnatural crime meant that he could not be convicted of it. His own words could not, uncorroborated, condemn him.

‘It is as if a man should admit to murder, there being no trace of a body, no person apparently missing, and no corroborative evidence appearing,’ he said to us, over a post-prandial glass of port in the Norwich hotel to which we had repaired at his suggestion. ‘What is one to do? It is most singular, the more so since I – ah – I incline to believe that – that the Act under which I might, might, ah- charge him is most – ah – unjustly – ah, improperly - worded: good heavens, are we to - to p-pry into men’s very b-b-bedchambers now? Have you anything to - to observe, Mr Holmes? I know my friend Lestrade thinks most highly of you and I am happy to learn anything you have to teach. I believe he thought you might yourself be able to determine whether some evidence of the crime existed.’

‘I can tell you whether I think Knights is telling the truth, or that I am certain he lies: no more. And that will not aid you at all. I am afraid that this is one of those cases where whatever your suspicions are, you can do nothing. I would, myself, put it down to some horror in him at what he has done, some lovers’ quarrel, or some rankling jealousy or spite on the part of the accuser, that he was not the preferred participant in the act. And I would dismiss the case for want of evidence. It would be the kindest thing to do.’

‘Is that your judgement having seen the man? Would you condemn him?’

‘What is your view on the case, Sir?’ Watson said. His tone was abrupt, and his eye fierce. ‘Do you think he merits the penalty – or any penalty?’

It was most unusual for Watson to intervene in a conversation: more unusual for him to challenge a client directly. It behoved me therefore, I thought to be silent, and to listen. Justice Stephens appeared to hesitate before asking a question in his turn.

‘You are a medical man, Doctor Watson: could not you determine whether there is evidence of his having been – involved – in unnatural acts?’

‘Not at a distance of time, not without intimate examination - and that I will not perform – not even, perhaps, with an examination, Sir. But I have to tell you, if you wish such to take place you must ask another medical man: I do not consider these acts between men as crimes, and will not stir a step to convict a man of them.’ Watson was frowning now. ‘What is your opinion?’

It would have been inaccurate to say that the judge smiled, but the cloud that had shaded his brow lifted a little.

‘I am of your mind’, he said. ‘I see now why Lestrade sent you to me; he knew I would be in need of a sympathetic hearer. The fact of the matter is, gentleman, that although the Act was a good Act, in that it offers protection to children who sorely need it, it has forever been tainted by this wretched amendment of Labouchère’s. I have been unwilling to say so – it is difficult to know – one must be very sure of one’s confidant – but – I do not see – in short, when these acts occur in private, and are private matters - this is a case where I am out of my depth. I cannot condemn him, yet it is as if he begs me to . . .’

‘The case is much as I stated before.’ I told him. ‘Yes, I examined Knights. Verbally. He accused himself again before me, stating that he had committed sodomy, with whom he had committed it, and the times and occasions on which he had committed it. But you cannot condemn him. And you should not; the poor man is half demented with shame, that he has had a male lover at all, and grief, his lover having thrown him over and taken up with another man. He thought of this plan to bring them all into shame and disrepute  - a sort of vengeance if you will, - very much as one should say _‘après moi le deluge’_ , or ‘ _all for love and the world well lost,’_ moreover he is racked with guilt for his own, as he sees it, evil propensities, He is no case for an assize, Judge, but for merciful treatment, the grace of charity, and leave to go about his life as any rejected lover, to settle it how he may and come to terms with his own nature as best he might. Why should the poor wretch’s self-accusation doom him to a penal servitude that might kill him, when he is not a strong man, and by not eating, not sleeping, has reduced himself to a mere shadow already? A man may surely not be forced to incriminate himself, to bring the axe down on his own neck.’

‘Then I shall dismiss the case, and warn him to say nothing more of it,’ Stephens breathed a sigh of relief and drained his port. ‘Although I daresay I must make some public remarks upon the iniquity of sodomy, of the nature of the sin which must not be named, and the degeneracy of the times, etcetera, etcetera, as is always expected of us. But I am glad to have my personal opinion corroborated. Gentlemen, I am indebted to you for your advice.’

‘That was a – strange – interlude – said Watson to me, as we travelled back on the train the following day. ‘I do not see that we did any good there other than to emphasise what the Judge already thought. And I do not like that he will still condemn the act between men, simply because he thinks he must. It is not the way to promote understanding or kindness, and yet, what if he were to express a contrary opinion? He would receive obloquy from all sides.’

‘To persuade him to see it from a different point of view or to show him ours was perhaps all the good we could do. I do not, myself, think he needed persuasion, only corroboration. I wish it had been more we could have urged him to; I wish he would not condemn the man publicly, against his own belief even: it is rank hypocrisy. I am inclined to think it a wasted journey, and yet - Lestrade was so urgent that we should go. Still, I do not – ah well, what use is it to speculate? I do not know.’

‘You are saddened,’ Watson laid his hand on mine, caressing it. ‘And I too. That is two young men we have seen this autumn, two wretched young souls adrift in a harsh world, where following their natural affection causes them such pain and torment. Young Housman was not ashamed – I believe he will turn all to good, in the end, or so I hope – but Knights, I very much fear, will be racked with self-torment all his days. And yet, if my reading of the literature I obtained in Vienna – and which you so very kindly translated for me, my dear chap - is correct, there is not a thing he can do about it. I endeavoured gently to persuade him of that fact, but he would not hear me, only looked at me with eyes drowned in grief, and shook his head. He believes he has sinned against God and man, that he deserves punishment: thus flowed his self-accusation. He invited punishment for the expiation of what he saw was his sin.’

‘Does God count it a sin?’ I turned my hand to grasp his – we were alone in our carriage – and he took mine in both. ‘Does he count it a sin? The laws of God, the laws of man – are they both so cruel? Leviticus, I know states it as such; the laws of Moses condemn it, to – to lie with man as with woman; to make the beast with two backs. But what of Christ: this is a Christian country? I see nothing in Christ’s teachings that condemns two men who love.’

‘You do not believe in God, Holmes. I know you do not; you are an infidel confessed. Why, then, submit your judgement to an arcane law designed for a pastoral people, that they should increase and multiply? Even their condemnation of Onan – of which we have spoken before – was designed to prevent the spilling of the life-engendering seed, propagating their race to the glory of their God. What harm does it cause to any, now, when we are not tribesmen competing for power, who a man loves? How can it harm? The prohibition seems to me to be on a level with the prohibition of self-abuse: senseless, a relic of our Puritan and love-denying past.’ He loosed my hand. ‘Come, my dear fellow, take off that hat, let me sit in the corner, and you can rest your head on my shoulder. You have the headache, have you not?’

‘Most vilely.’ I went willingly into his embrace. I did have a headache, but not for the reasons he thought. ‘So we care little for the laws of God; we are not believers, so we will not follow them. What of the laws of man? What of those, Watson? What of the new law?’

‘That is another matter.’

‘In what way?’

‘The punishment of a man for what are called ‘unnatural affections’ – I say, what are _called_ unnatural, for I do not deem them so – if it be carried out in the afterlife can be discounted in our reckoning of right action: to have fear of such, one must believe in an afterlife. You do not, therefore hell has no torments for you.’

‘And do you not?’ My eyes were closed; the rhythm of the wheels pounded in my head. My belly roiled. ‘What do you believe? Is there nothing after? Or is there heaven for such as want it, long for it, and hell for sinners?’

‘I cannot lay belief as comfort to my soul, Holmes. I believe I have a soul – a part of me that thinks, and feels, that hopes and fears and – and loves. But an afterlife? No.’

‘Nothing then? Eternal darkness? Watson – I sometimes think so too. But then if that be so, why do we strive? Why do any good, if it is all to no avail, if it neither redeems nor condemns? Is it not only the bright hope of heaven, the dark fear of hell that conduce to right action? Why should I not turn my undoubted powers – oh, do not laugh’ for he had chuckled quietly, and given me a little, reproachful pat on the arm, ‘my, I say again, considerable powers of mind to evil and to gain, if there is not judgement in hell to deter me?’

‘Holmes, your vanity has no bounds, my dear man.’ (But he was smiling as he said it, and I did not feel much reproved.) ‘Yes, by all means let us admit your undoubted powers: they are a given fact. You do not do ill, because there is something in you which desires good: you are a good man, kind both by nature and intention. In India, you know, there are those people – Buddhists, they are called - who believe we are born onto an endless wheel of renewal, to live our lives over and over, ascending in nobility and virtue – or descending by reason of our evil and re-ascending in penitence – until we reach transcendence - and they say that all things strive to this good. And I met Parsees, over there – followers of the prophet Zoroaster: they believe that actively to take part in good deeds, and to keep chaos at bay is to serve the god Ahura Mazda; they believe also in an ultimate redemption for all. You would be a good Zoroastrian, I think. You do good because – because you are good, Holmes, and therefore choose not to do ill. Do not, pray do not, judge yourself so harshly, my dear. It is not belief or faith alone that makes goodness.’

‘I have – I have dark thoughts, John. I – I do not think I am a good man.’

‘My dear Sherlock.’ He held me closer, and his lips touched my hair. ‘Oh my dear, take comfort. It is not the having dark thoughts, but the acting on them that is the measure of a man. Do not we all have dark thought? Yours can be no darker than mine, my innocent friend. But they are only thoughts; you have not acted. Remember, however dark those thoughts, those desires or needs in you, you have never killed, and I – I have, and not once only. I will never forget that I have; indeed my life is, in some respects, an expiation of it. And yet, no matter how hard I try, I cannot bring back the lives I have taken, only hold back, with all the little strength I have, those hastening too early to the gate. You are light itself compared to my darkness. Do not use yourself so harshly, I beg you.’

‘John, John, I am sorry. I did not mean to wake memories.’ I stroked his hand where it lay upon my breast. ‘I am sorry.’

‘It is no matter. We both only strive now to do good,’ he said. ‘Do you forgive yourself these dark thoughts – I will not seek to know them, though you may tell me if you wish, and be sure of a hearing, and no judgement – and I will try to forgive myself. God knows it is hard enough to bear one’s own evil, without reproaches from others.’

‘It is curious.’ I traced his name upon his hand, and felt him smile. ‘You say ‘God knows’, yet you do not believe?’

‘It is only the common parlance of the country, is it not? A relic of youth, of all those exhortations and teachings we carry about with us, those same teachings that drove Knights to condemn himself. I use it in wonted speech, I suppose. We are all so steeped in Christian heritage we cannot get free, no matter what our rational minds say.’

‘But returning to the question of Mark Knights? We are approaching a station, John: it is not far now.’

He loosed me – reluctantly I thought - and we remained apart and in silence until we had continued on again: the train was quiet, and so our privacy was not invaded.

‘Returning to Knights,’ I prompted him, for he had fallen into a brown study. ‘We have agreed that the religious laws of our Christian country are such as need only be observed by Christians, and we are none. But what of the laws of the land? They condemn such as he.’

‘They do. And we can set aside the laws of a creed we neither of us believe in, because we do not fear to lose heaven or merit hell. But we cannot set aside the laws of the land, though we believe that they be wrong. And I do believe, Holmes, that these laws are wrong.’

‘So must w – must a man obey them?’

His brow was stern; he frowned. ‘Young Housman left his rooms, left his companions, because it had been forced upon his understanding that his desires were not legal under the law. Yet he had committed no crime in simply having those desires: to have them is not a crime, merely to act upon them, and he had not acted on them, since the object of his affections did not reciprocate. But he saw how, by having those affections, he might bring his fellow into disrepute: bring down the law on both of them if any suspected him of an inordinate affection.’

‘That is true, but - ’

‘And aside from the lack of reciprocation, and the pain of his love unrequited, he saw how he might, if the man turned against him, be accused by the man he loved, who did not want his love - and thus be condemned. And we saw this with Knights and his accuser, who condemned him and then retracted, perhaps from some last vestige of sentiment, and with those Knights implicated who did not speak, and with himself: so that who loved whom, who rejected whom – that, we were uncertain of. But had we discovered it, then all that turmoil of unwanted and unhappy feelings might have led him – and more than him, perhaps – to punishment and hard labour. And in his case, since he would not have survived it, to death.’

‘And so? What is it you are saying, Watson?’

‘What man now would dare to offer himself to another, Holmes, if it is to bring down condemnation, and cruel punishment? What man who loved, who truly loved, my dear Damon, would make an offer of his – his affections -  to another, when it could cause him such harm? Would he not be acting more nobly to refrain?’

‘Of c-course- it – it would be – would h-have to be – the nobler action . . . But, Watson, do you really think that – that men will be deterred from – from r-relations with, with each other - by the Act? It is not so long ago that it carried a death sentence, and yet men were not deterred. Cornwall and French, Kirwan, Malcolm Johnson, John Saul – they were not deterred.’

‘Holmes, it is hard to prove sodomy: there had to be evidence. And so the death penalty was not often invoked. But this! To pry, as the judge said, into a man’s very bedchamber, to punish even the acts that take place in private, and harm none! It is beyond everything: moreover I fear that it will call everything, all finer feelings, all honest affection between men into disrepute, even – even perhaps . . . And what man would – would harm his – his dear friend by . . .’ He looked away, as if he hesitated, or wondered whether, to say more.

‘I think the judge was – was more kindly disposed to Knights and those like him than he could well say,’ I said. I could not tolerate a silence just then, nor could I bear to discuss what might be germane to us, to Watson and to myself. I had never, I thought, been more unhappy: a weight seemed gradually to be crushing me, slow, inexorable, merciless. ‘Did - did you notice his – his hesitations of speech? He would have had a stammer as a child, I think; perhaps because he was trained out of using his left hand, for although he wrote with his right, I noticed that like you, he preferred to lift his glass with the left, and it was with the left he habitually gestured, as if it were the more natural. I have often noticed the same hesitation of speech with people who are forced to use a hand that is not naturally dominant: in any case, he had, as I said, trained himself out of the stammer – of course, for he must use oratory in his day to day work, and one cannot have a judge be stumbling and hesitating – but when he was moved, or uncertain, it returned. I think he – I think he was an invert himself, perhaps, and therefore he was all the more concerned to be just, as well as merciful, to poor Knights.’

‘You are a marvel: your acuity is beyond anything,’ he said to me, but it lacked the enthusiasm he was wont to use. ‘I did notice: it is the sort of thing one is trained to look for as a doctor, and while we were in Vienna, I had several conversations with medical men who set great store by observation; they believe one should not just take the patient’s symptoms, but observe how he describes them, his eyes, his aspect, the tone of his voice, to gain a better understanding of his ailments. It is what you do most excellently, but in the judicial, not the medical sphere. Yes, I saw it too, and wondered, just as you did. I think he had more sympathy than he could well say, and thus it is doubly sad that he must condemn what perhaps he secretly feels  - or maybe experiences - in himself: those affections which the Act wishes to punish by punishing their expression. Yes, I saw.’

‘Your observation improves: I am impressed.’ I used my driest tone.

‘Praise from you is praise indeed. I have learned from the master, of course.’

I managed a laugh. ‘ So you do admit my undoubted powers?’

‘How can I not? You are, my most dear Damon, all that is excellent – and I will defend that to my death, you know. But we were discussing - ’

‘I would never require such devotion of you, my Pythias. But I confess to no small pleasure that you still, after the years we have been together find it in you to marvel at my poor feats of deduction.’

‘You would not require such devotion, no, Holmes. But it is yours, nonetheless. I do not feel – Holmes, I would like to continue this conversation. I understand -  I see that you – you wish to have done with it, but if you would grant me the opportunity to speak further? We are nearly into London however, and had better lay it by for the moment: one cannot discourse seriously in a train. When we return home I shall deal with your headache for you. Have you taken cocaine today?’

‘We shall speak, but I beg you, no more for the moment. I can barely see out of my right eye – the pain is intense. And no, I have not: I shall try an injection this evening. The draught in water begins to be a little nauseous to my palate, yet I do not wish to forgo the drug entirely. I think varying the method of administration is the correct thing to do. I know you do not like it, Watson, but it is not morphine I am putting in my veins, so you need have no fear.’

‘No, I do not like it, but we are assured of its harmlessness, so I will not gainsay you. You will only use the three-per-cent solution?’

‘I think so. Watson – I – I cannot speak any more just now.’

‘Then, my poor friend, close your eyes and let me see to all for getting us back to Baker Street. These headaches increase upon you, it seems. Take back your hat and pull it low: it will shade your eyes better. I will look after you, never fear.’

The subject of the Act had been mostly dropped between us then, it seemed by mutual consent, and in the succeeding days of the year, and over the quiet Christmas we spent together at Baker Street, it was not raised again. We went on as before. I did not wish to discuss the Act: it seemed to me every time it was raised between us, I was one fateful step nearer to leaving all caution behind, to throwing myself on his mercy, admitting my inversion, professing love for him - telling him outright that I could not live without him, I wanted – quite desperately wanted – to do more than lie in his chaste embrace in the corner seat of a train, secluded from all eyes, or on the sofa, my head on his shoulder, I wanted, as I had never wanted in my life, to share everything with him, my body, myself – my – my _sex_. As it was, every time he embraced me, every time he smiled, or his lips brushed my hair, or even, on rare occasions, my cheek; when we walked arm in arm, when he looked affectionately into my eyes, or smoothed my hair, or caressed my hand with a quick, gentle touch which seemed to say to me, yes, yes, I am here, I am your friend – I shivered to my bones, racked with helpless, hopeless longing.

But every time the longing shook me, I remembered how too often now I read of some poor wretch, too fond and confiding, brought to destruction by a man he had thought of as a lover. Every time I waited, hopeless and helpless, for him to say, as I had thought him about to say on the train back from Norfolk, that our friendship was too much, we must be less fond, less free with each other. He did not. He did not, and for that I was thankful, praying humbly that he might continue to be so generous with touch and look, and kind word. I loved him so very dearly, and yet I could see no hope now.

I was grateful, at this point in our lives, for the cocaine. Now when I pressed the needle into my veins, praying for its blessing, it was a seven-per-cent solution I used. I knew I was not an addict, of course: the substance was not like morphine. But at the beginning of that winter, the three-per-cent Watson wished me to use had appeared to have no power to affect my mind – I thought perhaps the batch itself was weaker, with less of the active ingredient in it – and so I had had to increase it. I was not addicted, for I could give it up if I wanted. And since I could give it up, I knew it was not addiction, but merely that I used it. I would not have liked to do without it all the same - for although it fevered my dreams to an extent, it also chilled my body, and so I was in no danger of allowing my – my desire for John to get the better of me. It was important that he remained in ignorance, after all: I had no desire to find myself in Housman’s situation. The drug was useful in other ways too, bringing a power of discernment, of transcendent clarity of mind which I valued very greatly and which assisted my work - so I was determined to continue it.

****

‘Holmes,’ said Watson, to me as he stood one chilly February morning in our bow-window, looking out at the night’s snow which the passage of cabs and pedestrians was rapidly turning into a brown sludge, ‘here is a madman coming along Baker Street. It seems rather sad that his relatives should allow the poor chap to come out alone, for he is in a state of extreme agitation. I must see if I can assist him before he slips on those icy pavements and breaks a leg to add to his woes: hand me my hat would you, my dear fellow? We shall have to put off our reading of Jekyll and Hyde for an hour or two, I think.’

I had caught up his hat and moved to the window as he spoke. It was immediately apparent to me that the man was no madman but merely in some extraordinary distress of mind, and, from the way in which he was scanning the house numbers, that he was looking for me. I said as much to Watson, but he had ignored me quite, and dashed hatless into the street, to return a few minutes later encouraging and supporting a man of about fifty, tall, portly, and imposing, with a massive, strongly marked face and a commanding figure. He was dressed in a sombre yet rich style, in black frock-coat, shining hat, neat brown gaiters, and well-cut pearl-grey trousers. It took us some time to recover him from his distress. He was indeed in a pitiable state -  he attempted to dash his brains out upon our wall, and was with difficulty restrained, and although I might have found the effect of grey matter upon wall-paper an interesting facet of forensic study, I do not think dear Mrs Hudson would have been pleased. So we prevented him, and while Watson fanned the poor fellow, and plied him with brandy, I endeavoured to calm and soothe him enough for him to tell us his troubles.

It was no surprise to me to learn that the man was the director of a bank: his dress, his demeanour, and the financial papers that had been thrust loosely – again evidence of his unusual perturbation – into his coat pocket, made his occupation quite clear; moreover the mud on his shoes had that peculiarly oleaginous quality that I associated with Threadneedle Street. When he introduced himself as a banker, by name Alexander Holder, I was immediately able to place him as the senior partner of a well known institution of impeccable honesty. His story of the beryl coronet that had been offered to him by a noble family as security for a loan of fifty thousand, taken home for safety, and apparently stolen by his son I found _bizarre,_ to use a French term, from the outset, but it was not until he mentioned the name of his son’s friend – a friend of aristocratic birth, a brilliant talker, a man of, he said, great personal beauty - whose fascinating manner he owned that he could himself scarcely resist -  that I began to see my way through the issue. Watson, of course, was not far behind me.

‘You say your son plays cards with Colonel Sebastian Moran? Can you tell me, Sir, how long he has known the Colonel, and whether his requests for money date from their acquaintance? I knew him in India you see: he was a gambler then, and many an unwary subaltern have I rescued from his clutches. He does not – play fair,’ Watson added, quietly. ‘I am not surprised your son has been in difficulties and asking you for money.’

‘But Colonel Moran is everywhere received into society,’ gasped our afflicted visitor, raising a haggard face. ‘He – he comes from an excellent family! I daresay my wretched Arthur met him at the Adairs’ home or some such place: is there no guarantee of honour among people of standing? If he were gaming at some low hell, I would understand it, but, Dr Watson, these are society people.’

I smiled at his naivety – for myself I had never found that aristocratic birth was any guarantee of honour - but Watson was frowning. ‘There is no point in taking money from those who have it not. Moran may have used your son because he is connected, through you, with a bank. No doubt he thought he had found a fertile source of income, since you would pay to avoid any scandal. You have ready access to funds, after all.’

‘I!’ exclaimed Holder, clearly quite aghast. ‘Are you suggesting I might - might lend myself to – to corrupt practice, to – good heavens, Dr Watson – I cannot believe my ears! Are you suggesting that I might steal – might embezzle money from my own bank to pay my son’s gambling debts? The idea is monstrous, Sir, monstrous!’

‘Not at all, my dear Sir, pray calm yourself, calm yourself. Dr Watson makes no imputation upon your honour, I assure you. He merely represents to you what Colonel Moran might hope to gain from making your son’s acquaintance. But I do not think you are corrupt, and for what it is worth, Sir, at this present time I think you are maligning your son. Only consider for yourself how unlikely the course of events is. You say you found your son taking the coronet: might it not be that he was merely returning it? For what reason would he be so inept a thief? You suppose that your son came down from his bed, went, at great risk, to your dressing-room, opened your bureau, took out your coronet, broke off by main force a small portion of it, went off to some other place, concealed three gems out of the thirty-nine, with such skill that nobody can find them, and then returned with the other thirty-six into the room in which he exposed himself to the greatest danger of being discovered. I ask you now, is such a theory tenable? Is it reasonable, Mr Holder, that he should do so?’

‘But what other theory is there?’ cried the banker, with a gesture of despair. ‘If his motives were innocent, why does he not explain them?’

‘It is our task to find that out,’ replied Holmes; ‘so now, if you please, Mr Holder, we will set off for Streatham together, and devote an hour to glancing a little more closely into details.’

In the event we did not go to Streatham with Mr Holder: he had business at the bank, and so we agreed he should precede us, and we should follow later. My dear Watson, so well accustomed to my manners and habits, barely uttered a word in the hours following the banker’s departure: he could see that I was revolving in my mind all we had learned, the better to understand it. In the train down to Streatham, he merely smiled at me and patted my hand, telling me not to mind him but to ask if there was any information I thought he could supply. We had then a small walk to the banker’s house, Fairbank, a good-sized square house of white stone, standing back a little from the road.

‘Would Moran intrigue with both?’ I asked him, as we trod down the double carriage sweep, and over the snowy lawn. ‘With both the lamentable Arthur, and this sweet, womanly niece of Holder’s, this paragon of beauty and gentleness, this sunbeam, unwilling to marry the prodigal son, who yet has pleaded with her uncle not to take the case any further against him, this delicate girl who was so affected by the theft that she screamed and fainted, yet who places the blame on another girl like herself, upon the housemaid, Lucy?’

‘You speak like a true sceptic upon the virtues of womankind’ he reproved me. ‘She may not wish to marry the lad, but if they have been as brother and sister for some years it is understandable she should be upset. Any loving sister might well be. Of course Moran would intrigue with both; it is entirely in keeping with his character to be predatory, and he cares not whether he hunts the stag or the hind. But Holder said the girl agreed with him, that she thought Moran was one to be deeply distrusted. So I would be surprised indeed if it were she.’

‘Of course you would.’ I smiled at him. ‘My dear fellow, with your chivalrous nature and fine sensibilities, you would never immediately suspect a woman of ill-doing. She would have to give you strong and compelling cause. But I am a cynic, and I suspect everyone of everything, without fear or favour. Why, I have not ruled out even Holder himself: stranger things have happened, than that a man in financial trouble should cover up a defalcation by nefarious means, even that he should go to the extent of employing a detective to investigate – it would look suspicious, after all, if he did not. Each one of those beryls – the three which are lost – is worth at least one thousand pounds. Three or four thousand may come in very well to cover a gambling debt, or pay off a mistress. It would be a plausible story – if it were not for the presence of Moran. He has his hooks into the family: even the banker feels his charm. He has undoubtedly cozened that hapless lad out of all his money; it remains to be seen whether he has not cozened him out of his virtue besides . . . or the girl, perhaps.’

Whether Mary Holder were complicit or no, I could see that Moran might choose to pursue her: she was a beautiful creature, dark of eye and fair of skin. I watched, teeth gritted, while Watson charmed her account of events from her with the gentle courtesy he knew so well how to employ. Sickening at length of drawing room sugar, I left him to his byplay, and betook myself to the grounds, where I very soon saw what I wanted and needed to see. When I returned, it was to sweep Watson up with me and inform the master of the house that we would be returning to London, and he might call upon me betimes in the morning for his answer to the riddle. I was surprised that Watson made no demur at being reft from the girl’s company – she really was very pretty, judged by any usual standard of beauty - and more surprised, as we travelled home on the train, by his complaint that I had had all the fun of playing at discovery in the snow, and he had been left to make commonplace conversation, ‘when I could, my dear Holmes, have been out on the hunt with you.’

‘Would you have preferred it?’

‘Why should you think I would not?’

‘She was – I thought you rather admired Miss Holder: you did not seem to object when I left you. You spoke to her with enjoyment: I know your smiles, Watson.’

He tucked my hand in his arm, and drew me close. ‘You do not know my company smiles,’ he said, quietly, ‘because I do not offer company manners to you, who are my true friend and noble Damon. When I smile at you it is with both affection and respect, my dear fellow: it is not a mere socially mandated rictus, offered out of  form. So do not suspect me of beginning to intrigue with the honourable Miss Holder, I beg of you. I do not dislike women, it is true: I do in fact relish both their company and their conversation – as I do men’s -  if they are reasonable people, and not vapid or silly. But I have no desire for more of their company than will serve to while away a pleasant half-hour, or to do them an honest service. And on this occasion, I was doing you an honest service, my dear friend. I do not know what is afoot, but I can tell you Miss Mary is not so distraught about her uncle’s grief, as she is about her cousin’s likely trial for theft. She is desperate for him to be let off. She is both fearful and guilt stricken . . . and I wonder, myself, why that should be. She cannot meet one’s eye and appear at all composed over the case, her agitation is excessive, and when she looks at poor Mr Holder, she flinches.’

‘Flinches! Are you implying that he beats her, abuses her? Heavens, Watson, why did you say nothing? We cannot leave the girl there if that is so: let us instantly return and rescue her!’

‘Not so fast, not so fast, my ‘ _verray parfit gentil knight’_. She is in no danger from our client. She flinches from consciousness of wrongdoing, not of wrong done to her. Myself, I fear you may have hit the nail on the head with your animadversion to Moran. I mentioned having known him in India, and there was a – a somewhat -  in her, a consciousness quickly and deliberately extinguished. Well, that is all by the by: I have rambled quite enough. Tell me, my dear fellow, what have you discovered?’

‘You are rambling to some purpose, Watson, and I am inestimably grateful. Light breaks upon me: you are its conductor, as always. Forgive my churlishness, if you please, it was unwarranted. And so are Holder’s suspicions: the boy could not have broken the coronet in situ, and to think so is preposterous. Had he done so, to somehow conceal the piece about his person for a future sale to cover his debts, it would have snapped like a pistol shot. All would have heard it. And you saw that I tried, myself, to break it. You know that I am exceptionally strong in the fingers - ’

‘ – you are indeed: I remember the late unlamented Dr Roylott, and our maltreated poker – an impressive feat of yours, there - ’

‘ – but I could not have done it unaided. There must have been two struggling together. And now here we are nearing London, and I must be away upon the tracks of evil. What will you do, my dear friend? I must go home first to change – I cannot be seen where I am going in this coat – and I may not be back until late, but I should like to confer with you before we retire, if you are up.’

‘I shall go immediately to Barts, and to my children; I assist Moore Agar today with a case, and after that I must meet Lestrade at the Yard: he has a corpse waiting for me. But I will wait up for you if you wish. I know you will tell me nothing now,’ and he smiled merrily at me, ‘that I may be the more surprised and astonished later, and your praise will mount from my lips to the very skies. Only have a care, Holmes, if I may not accompany you. Truly, Moran is dangerous.’

‘I will return to you unharmed, I promise. Embrace me, my dear Watson, and wish me well. I may have need of all the world’s luck to retrieve those three gems and the banker’s honour with them. Oh – and before we go our separate ways?’

‘Yes?’ He stood, balancing easily in the swaying carriage, smiled, and clasped me to his breast for one brief, delightful moment. ‘Dear Holmes, I wish you well. What is it?’

‘Would you like to know not the least amusing thing of all that is amusing in this merry little jig we dance with our client, and our client’s unfortunate, and, I fear, too noble-minded, son and his pretty, but suspect, niece?’

‘Enlighten me.’ He was all curiosity now.

‘The beryls, Watson, the beautiful beryls belonging to a family so noble that our breathless Mr Holder, awash in sycophancy, hardly dared mention the name of their owner – those beryls that were lent as security for a cool fifty thousand, those very beryls in the coronet that we saw mutilated – those thirty-nine flashing, sparkling beryls with the emerald depths of cool and verdant forests in them -  ’

He had grasped my drift. ‘Holmes, Holmes, they are not - ?’

‘They are fake, my boy. Paste, all paste. Of course Holder would not think to offend the noble family by having them assayed before accepting them as security – why would he suspect, after all - but they are fake. One cannot mistake the refractive index of lead glass. You observed how closely I examined them with my lens?’

‘I did but – Holmes – what of the fifty thousand – what of the -  the real stones?’

‘I very much fear that their price has gone the way that the fifty thousand borrowed upon them will go, Watson. I fear that their price is the tribute paid to a blackmailing scoundrel who has wrung each penny in heart’s blood from some scion of the noble family. I fear their tribute is not fully paid yet: certainly more stones will have to be converted sooner or later. A blackmailer does not stop as long as there is money to be extorted from his quivering prey. Oh, Mr Holder, Mr Holder – what a puzzle you have set me! It is not the broken coronet only – that is a minor matter, and when I see our friend Shinwell Johnson in an hour or so, I know he will put me on the track of their fence. But the blackmail behind it: I cannot see my way to discovering who is the principle there. Who is the man, I ask myself -  but I cannot yet tell.’

‘Surely a fence will assay the stones, Holmes? They cannot then be sold: criminals are better judges of gems than bankers, and will know instantly. So what comes to them? You must help our client quickly: the stones must be returned before Moran is aware of their falsehood. He would not be one to be merciful to the owners if it were to come to his knowledge that they were in such dire straits.’

‘True, Watson, you recall me quite rightly to the task in hand. Until later, my dear.’

The morrow – a cold and snowy morrow of a night during which I had not slept at all, but wired my weary Watson, bidding him sleep, and not wait for me while I tracked my quarry to his lair and confronted him – brought poor Mr Holder, chastened, subdued, broken, full of the tale how his cherished niece had thrown in her lot with Moran. When we returned him his beryls, we laid bare for him the sorry tale of how her cousin Arthur had seen her take the coronet to Moran, how he had followed, and wrested it away from him, only to have it break, how, accused by his father he had, heartbroken, taken the blame, not just to conceal his cousin’s treachery – for he truly loved her, poor lad – but for fear of Moran’s blackmailing him over his debts.

(Moran had also a hold over him about some scandal in a molly-house (where he had been trapped to his disgrace) about which we did not enlighten Mr Holder senior, fearing he might suffer an apoplexy had he known of his lad’s entrapment. I had set Johnson on the track of the parties involved in the molly-house case, to pay them off with some of my monies from Mr Holder’s fee: I could not in all conscience leave the wretched youth under Moran’s thumb in that respect. I had balked at his gambling debts, however; he would have to settle those himself, once re-established with his father. Perhaps sorrow might bring them together: one could hope for it.)

Given the loss of his niece, it was no real consolation to Holder to have the coronet back in its entirety, only he was relieved that he could return it in exchange for the fifty thousand pounds. (Which I assumed had been obtained by converting other jewels into paste for ready money.) I relieved him of the coronet again, however, and promised it would go to my friend Julius Wernher who would see it carefully repaired, since Wernher was one I could trust not to repeat the story of the stones’ replacement (about which I had not enlightened the banker, fearing for his sanity if he knew he had advanced fifty thousand on a necklace of paste.) It seemed some consolation to him that he could reconcile with his son, the both of them sadder and wiser, the father because he had trusted too much in a name, and trusted yet, to the extent that he would have no action brought against Moran, both that the family’s (false) jewels might not be exposed and that his niece’s name might be spared.

As for the son, when released from arrest, he came to thank us, and nigh wept on Watson’s shoulder, as a young recruit to a trusted Captain, pouring out such a tale of misery that Watson came from their meeting grim-faced, uttering imprecations that scorched the patient air. I was glad then that I had offered a little help to the wretched boy, and could tell Watson so. He had ever a soft heart for young things, did Watson, although he maintained, against my denials, that it was I who was tender over the wounded and abused.

‘And so that is that.’ I said to Watson, when we had finally seen father and son away. ‘A sad end to a sad story. I cannot see the noble family whose beryls began the case, of course: they have not retained me in the issue. But I wish they would. I do so hate a blackmailer: it would be a pleasure to me to foil this one. And I would give much to know what has happened to the real beryls. I suspect that Henry Judson Raymond – or should I say, friend Worth -  is involved somehow with the disposal of the real gems; I would lay money there is a link between them. If I had a clue – if only there was the smallest clue to who was behind it.’

‘I may have something for you there.’ He held out a hand. ‘Let me tell you before you go and bathe and change, and then you may lie down on the sofa here, and perhaps rest. I shall ask Mrs Hudson for a small cold collation, and open a bottle of wine. When young Holder was telling me his tale of woe, - he is a wild young cub that one; he would do well to go into the army to have some discipline instilled in him - he mentioned a name I had not heard before. It is Milverton, Charles Augustus Milverton. After his ‘adventure’ in the seedy establishment to which Moran lured and in which he left him, he received a letter asking for a meeting from a Mr Milverton, who assured him that he had his best interests at heart - ’

‘ - faugh, do they not always say so, these blackmailing vermin - ’

‘ - and being uncertain what to do with the letter, which spoke of witnesses and certain unwise vows made in wine, he took it to Moran - ’

I could not refrain from rolling my eyes ‘ - of course he did, the poor young fool - ’

‘ – who assured him that if he would do Moran a little service, he would ensure that Holder was not troubled again by a letter from the gentleman. And now, of course, Moran having prudently decamped abroad with his pitiful paramour – I truly compassionate that poor girl, Holmes, so do not frown at me: he will cast her off just as he cast off the others, for she has not the coronet, and brings him nothing, and I doubt if her uncle would ever take her back, alas – he is in anxiety as to whether Milverton will raise his head again.’ He yawned mightily, and stretched. ’Of course, I told the young wretch we would not strand him at the high-tide mark of his own stupidity, but would help him get afloat again if necessary, only to find that you had pre-empted me on that.’

‘You are too kind to these young idiots, Watson: if your heart were any larger it would encompass the world.’

‘It is your heart that is the kind one, Holmes, and I trust it to remain so. Tell me, did you meet Moran? I am anxious to know how you removed the jewels from him. He must have been in dire need of money to take such a risk: I had not thought he would. But I suppose if he were desperate, he might think the game worth playing. And you managed to conceal from him that the stones were fake?’

‘I had to: the knowledge would have exposed the owners to his greed, and they are in trouble enough anyway. I represented to him that the piece of the coronet he had retained was worth nothing to him, that the three stones were well known, and could not be sold without being recognised, and that I was empowered to offer him a thousand pounds apiece so that Mr Holder could avoid the scandal of having taken his surety home and having it stolen by his niece. He is in need of ready money at the moment, so he acquiesced, although I could see that he hated his disadvantage almost more than he wanted the money. I am very sure he cursed me in his heart, for that I injured his pride.’

‘You have made an enemy, then, for he has the devil’s own pride. Proceed, Holmes, since that is not all your tale, I am certain. Did he try - ’

‘Indeed. He thought he was dealing with a green negotiator, and so when I had given him the money and turned, he took a swing at me with a life-preserver – they are useful little weapons, Watson; I believe we should purchase one apiece. I was waiting for him to play a foul trick, and try for the money and the gems both, so I had out my pistol at once, and clapped it to his head. But he does not love me, does not Colonel Moran, and he does not love you, either, since you offered him the cut direct at the opera. He began to make what I took to be some foul comment or other about you, but I placed my pistol on his lips then, and offered to shoot out his lying tongue if he said a word more. He glared like a tiger – there was hate in his eyes - but he held his peace. He was not otherwise armed: I was fortunate. I warned him, and came away. But yes, he is an ill enemy, I think.’

‘He is. And you were fortunate.’ Watson came close to me. ‘I saw him once disembowel a native with a little knife – a very little, sharp knife - that he had out of his waistband, and into the fellow’s gizzard before one could draw breath. And the man had his own hands round Moran’s throat at the time. He is quick as a cobra, and wastes no time in parley. It must not have suited him to kill you, then - either the money must have been worth more than your death, or the opportunity of escaping without notice was not there. For believe me, if he had wished you dead then, you would be dead, pistol or no.’

‘Surely you jest, Watson. My gun was on his vile mouth: I could have shot him in an eye-blink. Give me a little credit, I beg you.’

‘I do’ He shivered. ‘But you were in more danger than you think. Holmes – Holmes, I beg you, do not meddle with Moran.’

I promised him I would not, but he was subdued all day, and later, later that evening, before we retired, he came to me, drawing me close with one hand to the nape of my neck, and leaned gently in until our foreheads touched. I pressed against him, and greatly daring, slipped my hands under his jacket, clasping his narrow waist. He was warm and alive to my touch, his breath a whisper upon my lips.

‘Sherlock,’ he said, quiet, gentle. ‘My dear Sherlock. My very dear friend.’

‘John,’ I said, and then I knew: he was afraid for me, because of Moran, and he feared what his dreams would show him. ‘You will not sleep tonight?’

‘I think not. Just – just do not die, Sherlock. I have lost all. All. Let me not lose you.’

‘Share my bed,’ I said. I do not know what emboldened me to it but I needed his presence so badly, and I could not bear us to be apart any longer. ‘Lie with me tonight, and let me be your comfort. We are both alone for I have only you to care for. We are friends, closer than blood. There can be no harm.’

‘In lying together? What of . . .?’

‘Hush.’ I placed my finger on his lips. ‘We lie in one bed just to sleep, my John, my dear friend. There can be no harm when it is only to sleep. We are just comrades who share a bed.’

Under my hands a quiver went through him. ‘Yes. Only to sleep.’

I woke sometime after midnight that night – I had not the need for sleep that he had – and raised myself cautiously on one elbow, careful not to disturb him in our narrow couch. He lay wrapped in his tumbled blanket, the moonlight silvering his hair, and dropping shadow across his closed eyes. ‘ _For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night. In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me, and his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy.’_ He was not awake as I murmured the lines, for he was many fathoms deep in gentle dreams, his lips curved in a smile. But as if he had heard me, he sighed and shifted, flung out a hand, seeking me _,_ a hand that came to rest upon my breast, there to caress a drowsy benediction. His arm lay across my breast - and that night I was happy.

It was not the only time we shared a bed that spring. When his dreams had tormented him, he would come to me, touch his forehead to mine, and say my name. In bed, retired, he would wrap himself in one blanket, and I in another, and thus chastely together we would pass the night. Sometimes we would embrace, his arms around me, or mine around him. I knew, after our discussion on our return from Vienna that he was no invert as was I; that there would never be anything more between us. I was infinitely grateful that I could look upon him sleeping and in our quietness, whisper his name.

*****

‘Where are you going, Watson?’

‘Oh, I am off to a lecture this afternoon with Thompson. I knew you would be busy with the Pimlico Poisoning case since you mentioned that you would be going to the Yard. When you see Lestrade, my dear fellow, would you do me the kindness of letting him know I shall be visiting this evening? I must speak to Mrs Lestrade about Polly: you recall, she is gone to the convalescent home in Cornwall, and Lestrade and his wife are to go to visit her very shortly?’

‘Indeed; I am so happy we have managed to procure him that small favour. I do not believe Mrs Lestrade has ever been so far afield before. What is your lecture? I see from the paper, by the way, that your erstwhile favourite Labouchère has been enraging the more traditional member of the House again.’

Watson shrugged, and turned to look for his hat. ‘He now wishes to abolish the House of Lords: only a week or so ago it was reducing the subsidy for maintaining the royal parks. If he does not wish to live under a monarchy, perhaps he would be better off returning to his native land and enjoying the liberty, equality and fraternity of the Third Republic. He is an ethical sans-culotte, without a doubt – but I notice he does not scruple to make full use of the advantages of his aristocratic birth and inherited wealth. I have no time nor patience for his abuse: _“quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra”_ is my response. Oh, where the devil is my hat?’

‘ “ _Quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? Quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?” ‘How long is that madness of his still to mock us: when will there be an end to his unbridled, swaggering arrogance of every day.’_ Cicero so often has the apt and trenchant word. Your hat is upon the chesterfield, my dear fellow: I have no idea why.’

‘I have no idea either; I swear I did not leave it there when I returned yesterday. No matter. It is pleasant, is it not, Holmes, to be able to do a little good? I am grateful for poor Mr Holder’s generosity, for we can spread it far and wide. It is surprising to me how much real benefit and unalloyed joy may be bought with the expense of but a few pounds - surprising, and so pleasant that I wonder more do not avail themselves of the opportunity.’

‘Indeed it is: and on your return I have further schemes to propose to you, my dear chap. Is this one of your medical lectures you go to?’

For the first time, Watson appeared ill-at-ease. ‘It is not, in fact, Holmes. It is an exposition into astronomy, in which Thompson is also interested, a disquisition upon the ephemerides, or way of calculating the position of objects in the heavens. He mentioned it to me and  I asked him to procure tickets. You know – I believe you are aware that I have always loved the stars, ever since Afghanistan, when I first – I suppose I first truly observed them, so beautiful in their serenity, so bright in night’s velvet compared to our darkness. It is not just their beauty, but – but their permanence, perhaps, the magnitude of their ignorance of us, our smallness in the face of the immense universe. I am not – I am not a religious man, but - ’

‘ _“Canst thou bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loosen the belt of Orion: canst thou lead out the constellations in their season, or guide the Great Bear with his cubs.”_ I do know how you love the stars, my dear fellow, and think it remiss of me not to have considered it before. Should you like a telescope, Watson? We might purchase one with some of Mr Holder’s largesse – you should have something for yourself, after all -  and have it sent to Sussex, when we holiday there, as I hope we will this summer. I take it you go to Professor Moriarty’s lecture then, if it is astronomy? And that is why you are balking at telling me?’

He sighed. ‘Confound it, my dear chap, must you be so acute? I know you do not like the man, Holmes, but he is a damned able astronomer and mathematician. His – his person is unprepossessing, it is true, but his mind – his mind is of a clarity – When I hear him speak I am at once convinced that I am the cleverest of men for understanding him, and I confess it is quite an agreeable sensation.’

‘He has a golden tongue, it is true, your Chrysostom of the mathematical heavens. Pray God it may not be forked.’

‘You have the strangest way of taking a dislike to someone, my dear man: it is unaccountable. What harm has he done to you?’

‘He approached you wishing to discuss Moran, which anyone who knows you well understands is no way into your favour. And I – I did not like his eye. It is cruel.’

‘The poor man is short-sighted in the extreme, and so must squint, even with glasses; I am sure it is myopia you observe, not malice. And I made it clear to him at the outset that Moran and I have nothing to say to one another, since which time  - for I have met him at Thompson’s several times: they are by way of being friends - he has not mentioned the Colonel again. Come, Holmes, own that your prejudice is unreasonable, my dear, good fellow. I only attend a lecture at the lecturer’s invitation: what harm can there be?’

‘None, I suppose. Although I was right about Labouchère, Watson.’

He had taken up his hat, but put it down again and approached me. ‘That is true,’ he said, slowly. ‘Very well, Holmes, in deference to your acuity, I shall be wary of Professor Moriarty. But I do not think he is any other than an academic.’

‘He is of modest means, if he is a professor at the University, yet he lives in an extremely well-appointed house in Leicester Square. It is an interesting house, that one, Watson. Are you aware that it once had two doors?’

‘My dear Holmes, do not most houses?’

‘Not giving on to two different roads. The professor inhabits that house once owned by the famous surgeon, John Hunter. It sits on the east side of Leicester Square, with a very fair façade: a tall four-storey building, which, one would think, would be rather too large – and too expensive - for a solitary professor. And behind it once, connected by passages and an auditorium where the celebrated man gave his lectures was another house, which gave onto number 13 Castle Street. Of course I believe it is not there in its entirety now: that area was razed to the ground and Castle Street is now Charing Cross Road, a fine thoroughfare to serve the railway station. But in Castle Street was the resurrectionists’ trade entrance to Hunter’s house, when they brought corpses for the surgeon to dissect. And it is, I think, that house on which Stevenson has modelled the detestable Mr Hyde's. At least so I deduce it.’

‘That is – interesting - ’ he put a gentle hand on my shoulder. ‘And of course I am aware of John Hunter: there is not a medical student alive today who does not owe a debt to him and his research, although I must deprecate the means he used to acquire his corpses: grave robbery, forsooth! Hunter the Knife Man! His ligature of the popliteal artery for aneurysm is still used: it is a not uncommon procedure for army surgeons to perform, where the artery has been weakened behind the knee by the constant pressing of tight boots. If it were not, moreover, for his dissections of the gravid uterus in all its stages and unhappy deformations, we should all of us be at sea when it came to understanding the trials of women in labour. But it does not therefore follow that because the professor lives in Hunter’s house, he leads, like Hunter did, a double life. Stevenson is an Edinburgh man, you know: they count Hunter one of their most famous sons, for all that he lived and worked most of his life in London so it is not surprising that he is aware of the stories. And on the subject of Hyde, Holmes . . .’

‘Yes, we must read more tonight: I – I begin to have views on the book . . .’

‘As do I. Well, I shall not be very long and I daresay will be back before you. Come, my dear fellow, may I embrace you? I do not like to see you troubled. I promise I shall use all discretion with the Professor. I trust your judgement, you know: I am very sure that your deductive faculty is most finely tuned.’ He opened his arms, and I went to him, stooping to rest my brow on his shoulder. His hand caressed my hair, then his arms came about me, too briefly, alas, for I could have rested there an age for the warmth, and his kind comfort. ‘You are a little sad today, are you not, Holmes? You seem low, and weary. And anxious, my poor fellow: it is not like you to worry about such a small thing as an elderly professor and his astronomy lectures.’

‘It is only that I have not had my cocaine: I shall take it directly you leave: that will soon pick me up. I lack energy, and I cannot shake off these chills.’

‘The wind has been cold: perhaps you are sickening for something. You must wrap up warmly when you go to the Yard, and not stay away too long.  You know, I should very much like a telescope, Holmes; do you indeed think that we might purchase one? That would be capital.’

‘Consider it done.’ I could not stop shivering. ‘Go then, Watson, and do not delay your return. I shall take my cocaine now, that I may be the fitter to withstand the day’s toil. I feel to need it more than usual today.’

*****

Watson did not attend any more of Professor Moriarty’s lectures, and I was glad of it: I did not, could not, like or trust the man. I had only met him the once, but I knew I was not mistaken about the malice with which he regarded my friend. I believe he asked Watson once or twice to social occasions, but Watson turned him down, offering as an excuse that he was pressed with work. I continued to suffer from poor health: February had been peculiarly cold, and dull, with gloom and fog every day, and I found my black moods increase upon me.

March came in like a lion, with a tremendous storm of snow in the north which did much damage. London had hard frosts accompanied by showers of snow and sleet, and strong gales prevailed until the seventeenth or so: indeed, we were near putting off the Lestrades’ visit to Cornwall since there was no pleasure to be had from the weather. The latter half of the month was much warmer though, and so Watson and Mrs Hudson eventually waved them off at the railway station, leaving the littlest Lestrades quartered with friends, young Tom away with his ‘prentice master, and Sally taking lessons from our Janey at Baker Street.

‘Thank God for that,’ said Watson, when he returned from the station. ‘I thought we would never get them away: such cries and lamentations from the children you never did hear in your life. I am glad you were not there: you would have been out of all patience. Still they are gone for a fortnight, and I trust they will have an enjoyable sojourn, The weather is kind now in Cornwall, I hear: it is strange how it has reached spring’s temperature so quickly.’ He rubbed his hands together briskly, and came to stand at the fire, which I had made up myself for his return. ‘It is still too chilly here in gloomy London, however. How are you, my dear fellow? We barely had time to speak this morning, before I had to conduct Mrs Hudson to the Lestrades.’

‘I am well, Watson.’

‘I think you are not.’ He looked around the room. ‘You have left out your violin. I perceive from the amount of rosin dust upon it that you have played for some time, yet you have not cared for the instrument, nor put it away and that is unlike you, Holmes. The fire is made up, yet I notice you shiver. And you have not touched the experiment you began yesterday – what was it again? – so I say you are not well.’

‘I was endeavouring to determine whether salicylic acid first produced from willow bark can be so treated as to produce a more effective antipyretic; I am weary of these aches and pains and chills, and willow-bark tea does not materially aid them. I thought that perhaps if I concentrated the active ingredients into a synthetic form – I intend to procure a sodium salicylate, and then treat it with acetyl chloride, to produce Gerhardt’s formula - but then I must make it precipitate into a useful form. I might thus be able to produce a more effective compound.’

‘It would be a benefit to mankind not just to you yourself if you could. Did you not feel able to complete it, my dear fellow? Again, it is unlike you to abandon your work.’

‘I could not apply myself. I am – intolerably restless, cannot settle to anything. I feel – I need a case, Watson. My mind stagnates without work, and we have had nothing stimulating since Mr Holder’s problem. I know he paid us well – we do not need to, but, but – it matters nothing to me that we could afford not to work: I must have excitement, action, some purpose – my mind is like a racing engine, flogging itself to pieces because it is not connected up to the work for which it is built. I am unable to move forward, chained in place. Life is commonplace, the papers are sterile; audacity and romance seem to have passed forever from the criminal world. It is unbearable.’

He was frowning at me, and my heart sank. ‘I think perhaps you have a fever,’ He stripped off his gloves and laid a hand to my brow. ‘A little perhaps. I suppose you will not confine yourself to bed, Holmes?’

‘I shall go mad if I do: I cannot tolerate this endless tedium.’

Then put on your coat, and a warm scarf, and fetch your hat, and we shall walk to take the restlessness out of you. We have not had a good round this age: it does not do to be stewing inside. You will come to no harm if we keep moving, and you bathe immediately we come in. And exercise will help you sleep.’

‘Sleep! I cannot sleep. I did not sleep last night.’

His gaze sharpened. ‘Not at all?’

‘I could not. Thoughts whirled in my head until I thought I would go mad with them: it is always the same when I have nothing to do. I slept little enough the night before. And – and I cannot take morphine; you would not approve.’

‘There are other aids to sleep, Holmes. If nothing else you might take a glass of porter. Hops are sedative, and so is chamomilla, or valerian. Leave it to me, and I shall see what I can do. But let us walk first: you may deduce for me as we go.’

We rambled around for two hours, not in our wonted silence, but with Watson throwing a constant barrage of questions and suppositions at me. Did but I pass an object or person of interest by without comment, he would utter a ridiculous ‘deduction’ of such implausible derivation that I was compelled time and time again to correct him (which he took, I have to say, in very good part). What he was doing of course, was to create an artificial excitation of the mind for me, and I was grateful for his efforts, although I knew it would not completely serve his purpose.

We returned home in time for me to bathe before a late lunch, which was interrupted by a telegram from Charing Cross from one Mr Scott Eccles. Much against Watson’s advice – for he thought my fever to increase upon me -  I agreed to receive him immediately at Baker Street. I could not, I told Watson, resist the lure of a ‘most incredible and grotesque experience’ - and events proved me right not to do so for it was a case, and an intriguing case into the bargain.

It was immediately clear to me that Eccles was an invert. It was not his habit of dress, or his outward appearance – to all intents and purposes, he was the epitome of a respectable businessman, stout, tall, grey-whiskered and solemn. Everything from his neat boots and pearl-grey spats to his top hat proclaimed the social conservative: even his frankly rather snobbish decrying my position of private detective – which I was not, I firmly corrected him; I was a consulting detective – indicated that he was endeavouring to play his part well. What was it then? What gave him away to me? How did one invert recognise another? Perhaps it was the way he looked at me that exposed him: a subtle appraisal -  one which I knew, for I had had to train myself out of it as a lad, lest I give away even my mild and innocent interest. Perhaps it was rather the covetous eye he cast, damn him, upon Watson - an assessing, lecherous glance at my dear boy’s finely shaped, beautiful mouth, the cut of his well-fitting tweed trousers, the gentle strength of his capable, surgeon’s hands.

Yes, he was an invert. That much was clear to me before ever he began to tell me about the queer business that had sent him post haste to my door, before Inspector Gregson appeared, with a stout, puffy, red man (his face only redeemed from grossness by two extraordinarily bright eyes almost hidden behind the heavy creases of cheek and brow) whom he introduced as Inspector Baynes of the Surrey Constabulary -  and brought Eccles to a quivering halt with an accusation of murder.

It was certainly clear to Watson that Eccles was an invert when he laid out the story of the now deceased Mr Aloysius Garcia, that pleasantly-mannered young man who had taken such a fancy to our party-loving bachelor. Verily, to the discerning eye, he proclaimed himself openly as an invert as he told how he had met Garcia at the house of a friend – also a bachelor – how he had struck up quite a friendship with him, and within two days of their meeting had invited Garcia to visit him at his house at Lee. The parallels with the Dublin Castle Case – the loose coterie of wealthy bachelors, some older and retired, some middle aged and wealthy, with their attendant young men, hangers on of dubious reputation and little substance, meeting at each others’ houses for discreet dinners and musical parties – those parallels were too obvious to be ignored, if one knew what to look for.

However, whether it was clear to Gregson and Baynes that he was an invert, I was not yet able to determine fully. For the moment, it appeared to me that their suspicions of him as having been the perpetrator of a vile murder were as yet so lively that they left no room for suspicions of him as a sodomite - for which I was very thankful. I did not want the poor man to escape the Scylla of a murder accusation only to be engulfed by the Charybdis of the Labouchère Amendment – under which, it seemed to me, he would certainly be found guilty.

Watson poured brandy and soda, and then took notes, as he always did, while Eccles told his sorry tale of the queer household he had, in his turn, been invited to visit; how the house had been unexpectedly gloomy, the servants unexpectedly morose, the dinner unexpectedly poor, and the host unexpectedly distrait. (I was certain, however, that he omitted at least part of the tale: that which took place between dinner and the two men retiring at eleven.) Then he told of the waking at one, his host asking if he had called him, his returning to sleep and waking again, to find the house deserted, of his trip back to Charing Cross and visit to the Spanish Embassy to seek news of Garcia there, and of his discovery that the friend at whose house he had met this obliging young man to whom he had taken so great a fancy knew no more of him than Eccles himself (And perhaps rather less, I thought to myself.) Setting aside all thought of any personal encounter that had taken place between the two men, it seemed to me that the case might well be described as grotesque and fantastic, the more so since the young man, Garcia, had been found not a mile from the house on Oxshott Common with his head broken, having first made a point of waking Eccles to tell him that it was one in the morning before leaving the house to go to his death.

‘Baynes is a good man,’ I remarked to Watson,, some hours after our visitors had left us. ‘It was astute of him to notice the unburned note at the back of the fireplace, as it provides some corroboration of Eccles’ story. As for the writing itself, it is clearly a code of some sort: we will come to that in a minute.’

‘There must have been some conspiracy, and Eccles was to be used as an alibi: what reason else to invite him down with no attempt at true hospitality, only to -  to wake him and make a point of the time? You see I am learning from you, my dear Holmes. He was an invert, of course: almost certainly the reason Garcia chose him. I imagine what Eccles did not tell us is what occurred after dinner.’

‘Yes, he was a good choice, since if anything went wrong he could be terrified into silence. There is obviously something unnatural about the whole of this strange and sudden friendship between them. He was coaxed into going down; assiduously wooed over the course of some days. He is not the sort of man to be congenial to a quick-witted Latin, so he must have been picked out from all the other people Garcia met as one suitable for his purpose. Has he one outstanding quality? Indeed he has, he is the very type of conventional British respectability, and the very man as a witness to impress another Briton. Gregson did not even question his respectability, or his account of events.’

‘And has he one outstanding weakness?’ Watson’s tone was grim. ‘I believe so: he is a type of conventional British respectability with an unconventional leaning that is now impermissible under the British law. He could so easily be blackmailed.’

‘Intelligently argued, Watson. You are certain of that?’ I was curious to know why Watson thought Eccles was an invert: it argued a greater familiarity with us than I had thought. To my surprise, he lowered his eyes, and blushed a rather charming shade of pink.

‘I found his gaze – impertinent,’ he explained, his tone a little stiff. ‘There are some things one cannot mistake, Holmes – especially when one has been in the army, and yes, if you must know, I have been on the receiving end of such looks before. I am sure you have not, for no-one would dare to, so I daresay you deduced it from his shirt cuffs or his coat collar or some such. I did not catch him looking at you like that, and it is just as well, or I should have darkened the fellow’s daylights for him.’

‘Your efforts to protect me would have been kindly meant, Watson, but perhaps not very helpful for the case,’ I had replied as severely as I knew how, but I was amused, and he knew it, for he laughed, his eyes bright.

‘It is as well I did not then. I would have been sorely tempted had he offered you offence. Seriously though my dear Holmes, what think you of the case?

‘I think Eccles is innocent, I think Garcia was – not who he appeared to be – and I think the next few days will reveal all. But I do thank you for wishing to protect my virtue, my dear Watson.’

‘I am as ever your very faithful Pythias.’ He stretched and yawned. ‘That was a good walk, Holmes. Do you feel it has shaken you out of the doldrums a little? You must surely feel better now you have the case.’

‘I do, although I have become so used to working with Lestrade it seems odd to be with Gregson,’ I confessed to him. ‘I thought myself impervious to such – such emotional considerations, but I find that I prefer to have someone on whom I can thoroughly rely. It is not that Gregson is not a competent, thorough officer – it is just that there is not that certainty of being understood, that he is not  - not – oh, I do not know how to put it - ’

‘Not family,’ put in Watson, moving to the sofa. He sat next to me, and stretched an arm along the back of it, letting his hand brush my shoulder as I leaned into him. ‘We are a strange little family, are we not? I confess, I think of Lestrade almost as a brother, after so many years.’

‘Five years. I suppose we are.’ I was unwilling to own it, but I had often thought so, ever since my trip to Antwerp, when I had been so lonely. ‘I suppose we are.’

Later that night after we had investigated Wisteria Lodge and its strange remains, we settled into our comfortable double-bedded room at the old Bull Inn in the pretty village of Esher. I turned my head into Watson’s shoulder and sighed.

‘What is it?’ he asked. He drew me a little closer: only a thin blanket between us for decency’s sake. ‘Here, fold your arm like so, and we may be comfortable, my dear.

‘Baynes is an intelligent man, but I think he is on the wrong track. I shall let him go his own gait, because he is right when he says that he has his own name to make, and will not allow me to help him and take credit. I am retained by Eccles, in any case, so I must remain impartial from the official force. I do hope it is his name Baynes makes, and not a hopeless mull of it. I like him, do not you?’

‘Yes: he seems to be a man of large sympathies, a stalwart man, good-humoured.’

‘And one whose powers seem superior to his opportunities. Watson, I should like to spend a week here: I must investigate the neighbourhood.’

‘It is not far from town: I could hire a gig, drive in a few mornings and check my patients at the hospital. We might contrive to stay – the skies are splendidly dark out here, and the moon waning from her full. I could do a little star-gazing at night, and settle to my writing during the day while you pretend to botanise and pursue your investigations. Do you wish me to ask if the landlord has another room? To share a bed is not an inconvenience for one night, but you might find it constricting for a week, and I know you do not always sleep well.’

‘Ask for a truckle bed in here, if you must, and I will take it if I become too restless for you. I like being with you better, John.’ I was dropping with sleep – he had insisted on me taking the vilest of valerian teas that evening, and had denied me my coffee – and perhaps was a little unguarded.

He chuckled and brushed his lips across my brow. ‘Very well, Sherlock.’

*****

‘If you write this case up, you must conceal the dates and obscure the names,’ I warned Watson. We had returned home, after the astounding denouement of the case; the escape of ‘Mr Henderson’ and his devoted secretary, ‘Mr Lucas’: the aliases of Don Juan Murillo, the ‘Tiger of San Pedro’ and Lopez, his devoted – friend;  and the dramatic, drugged, escape of ‘Miss Burnet,’ alias Signora Victor Durando, widow of Murillo’s murdered ambassador, and aide to Garcia’s group of conspirators. Garcia, who had been surprised and murdered on his way to the assassination of Murillo would, Signora Durando had sworn to us, be revenged; there were many in waiting whose aim it was to murder the deposed dictator and his secretary, hunting them out wherever they might find them.

‘Politics’ grumbled Watson. He was at his desk, pen and paper before him, yet I could see that he had not written a word. Indeed, he was flipping his pen so savagely between his fingers that I feared it was like to break. He was thoroughly out of sorts, and I knew why. ‘I might not even write these events up at all, although you did splendidly, as always. As for me, I was completely at sea with the ramifications of the case until right at the very end: had you been speaking to me in Sanskrit I could not have understood it less. But all this business with dictators and secret societies sworn to their murder, and voodoo and fetishes and slain cockerels; it is so – so - ’

‘Penny dreadful,’ I suggested. ‘Lurid. Lacking apparent reality. A critic would call it a shoddy little case. It covers two continents, concerns two groups of mysterious people, and is further complicated by the fortuitous and unhappy presence of the _ci-devant_ respectable Mr Eccles, and yet it is still a shoddy little case. Although Baynes has come out of it well: he has instinct and intuition that man, and I am sure he will rise high in his profession.’

‘It was an unpleasant case, yes. There is much about it that I detest, although I grant you Baynes’ excellence. I certainly do not think it will appeal to my editors; it lacks a certain authenticity, as if it were cobbled together piecemeal for some theatrical farce. And I do not like the – the -  oh, there is not a word for it – making the cook into a scapegoat. Yes, he is black, and yes, he is a pagan. And now he is without a place, and without remuneration, poor fellow, and has been vilified in the press. I am trying to get him a position in the hospital kitchens, but it is uphill work. As for the respectable Mr Eccles – this whole affair will forever be tainted for me as a case by what has happened to him.’

‘I have certainly been surprised by Gregson’s actions in London while we were all so busy here. I had wondered why he left it all to Baynes, but clearly he was pursuing other game. And I have been shocked by the depths of his animosity towards – towards Mr Eccles and those men l-like him, whose affections are given to men.’

‘I am, frankly, terrified by Gregson’s actions. I say this without shame; think me a coward if you will, but I am grateful that he never came down for the case while we were staying at the Bull.’

‘Surely you do not think he would have . . . are you implying that he would have - ’

‘You know, Holmes, I would not have thought he would have focused on the action of Mr Eccles before the case, nor that he would have investigated Mr Eccles further, once it became clear he could not have murdered Garcia. I would not have imagined he would have taken it upon himself to station constables outside the house of Mr Melville, retired brewer, of Albemarle Mansions, Kensington, where Eccles met Garcia, nor, even in my most unpleasant dreams, that he would have introduced a young constable posing as a rent boy into the house, there to trap those unwary wretches who were simply trying to live, Holmes, to live their lives with some  - some affection to have, in a world that condemns their seeking it. And to enter the house with warrants, no, I would not have thought he would do that. So, alas, I cannot be sure of what he would have thought had he come to the Bull  - ’

‘ – had he – had he understood that we two lay in one bed - ’ my throat was dry.

‘ – and had any harm come to you, Sherlock, my – my - ’

‘ – John, we are innocent of wrongdoing!’

‘Would the world think so? Baynes took me aside after the case, and warned me. Gregson had sent for the sheets in Eccles’ and Garcia’s rooms at Wisteria Lodge, he said, and he had questioned the servants as to whether they were aware of any indecent behaviour on the part of their master or his visitor. Gregson confronted Eccles – I have seen the wretched man: he is completely broken – with the sheets, with what he said was evidence of sodomy. On the damn sheets. Eccles cannot be charged – Garcia, the man who could have accused him, is dead, and there could be a – a natural explanation for, for – well, stains. But Gregson is investigating the group around Melville, and so Eccles may well be implicated more closely in the future. He may even be charged.’

‘Why did Baynes warn you, not me? And what did he warn you of, Watson?’

‘He would not sully your ears with the gossip, for he respects you too much; you are his idol in the profession. But the village grapevine had already mentioned to him that the two London gentlemen were sharing a room because they were too tight-fisted to pay for two and so were no gentlemen. At least they accused us of meanness, of poverty, not of anything else. I thank God I had the other bed brought in: that provided some cover to the story they told. But in view of Gregson’s actions, Baynes thought to warn me that such a thing could be – misconstrued - is the word he used. I wanted to damn him for his interference – to be lessoned like a schoolboy by a country policeman! -  but instead I gritted my teeth and thanked him kindly. He meant kindly. And he did not take to Gregson either, fortunately for us.’

‘No, Gregson thought to patronise him; Baynes did not take it well. Watson - ’

He laid down his maltreated pen, came to me in a rush, pulled me to my feet and held me hard against him, his arms a vice around me. I had never, I thought, as my knees weakened, and my eyes dazzled, felt so loved. So cherished. So safe.

‘I do not care what the world says.’ His voice was a low mutter. ‘I do not care, do you hear me? You are my Damon, my friend above all friends, my more than brother, my – my soul, Sherlock. I will not let you be harmed. I will not put you at risk. But I will not leave and I will not be driven away, and I will not, oh, I will not give up the chiefest good in my life, this  - yes, I will, I will call it love, for David loved Jonathan with his whole soul, his whole heart – this more than all to me. I will not.’

‘I – I will not let – you – I - ’

‘Say nothing,’ he said to me then. Begged me. Pleaded. ‘Say nothing, my dear, only, only – let us take care that, that we are not ensnared. Were I to cause your fall, it would be death to me. And yet, I cannot give up your affection, it is so dear.’

‘Nor I yours. I – I starved for years, John. Years without a kind word, a gentle look without, without even a hand to hold. Save M-Mycroft, there were none to care and he – he is distant: it is his nature. I never knew I wanted it. Until you. But now – I cannot give it up. Do not make me give it up.’

‘No,’ he said, and touched his mouth to mine in a fleeting caress. ‘We shall not give it up, Sherlock.’

*****

‘I think it is quite clear,’ said Watson to me, some days after we had wrapped up the case of Wisteria Lodge. ‘I think it is quite clear what Stevenson has been saying so far, do not you? It is very plain. But is not this a queer, uncanny tale? It could not be more unlike Treasure Island if it tried for a twelvemonth,’

‘I think so.’ We were discussing our new novel on the sofa together, swathed in the blue afghan against the evening chill. We had hardly begun it as yet, so busy had we been. ‘It is, as you say an odd book, unlike any other I have read before. Even from the beginning, the, the – oh, I do not know what to call it – the sense underneath the words has been apparent: it leaps to the initiated eye. It is as if the book has been written for two audiences, and only one has a key that will unlock the meaning. All others will read superficially - and without the arcane knowledge, they can gain no true understanding.’

‘Yes - the meaning is clear – if you understand what it means that this group of bachelors – confirmed bachelors – have only each other for company. That they seek each other out, sojourn at each others’ houses. There is not a woman to be seen in this book. It is Scott Eccles and Mr Garcia over again, it is Cornwall and his musical parties, and Kirwan. If one knows, it is there.’

‘What is said of Utterson – listen: _“in this character, it was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of down-going men. And to such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never marked a shade of change in his demeanour.”_ He is a friend of the desolate, degenerate and degraded, and he a lawyer. Yet lovable, it is noted: I wonder to whom.’ I turned the page. ‘Stevenson describes here the experiences of many men who - walk outside polite society. Does he, as we think, refer to the society of inverts? He is brave, if so - especially in the current climate of, of dislike.’

‘He must do, Holmes, he must do. Hear what Utterson’s particular friend, Enfield is doing: " _I was coming home from some place at the end of the world, about three o'clock of a black winter morning.”_ These words are familiar to me, but not from any other book. The account of the Dublin Castle trials had just such covert movements: what would any respectable man be doing walking the streets at such a time?’

‘What of Enfield’s words here?’ I seized the book from him.  Listen again, Watson: _"No, sir: I had a delicacy," was the reply. "I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back-garden and the family have to change their name. No, sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask."_ If that is not an allusion to -  if it is merely coinci – Watson, what has Stevenson written here? It is -  it is extraordinary. And this man, Hyde, this man who affects people who see him with such strong revulsion that they want nothing more than to kill him – who is he? When money is demanded of him , to compensate for his ill deed, he may at once procure money from a man well known to Enfield to be the acme of respectability. This smacks of extortion, does it not, Watson, indeed does not Enfield say so: “ _an honest man paying through the nose for some of the capers of his youth”_? So thus far, it would seem that Hyde is the figure of the blackmailing scoundrel who persecutes a man for his - his affections.’

‘It does indeed seem so, for ‘Blackmail House’ is the name of the house into which he retreats. I do believe this is the strangest book I have ever read in my life: I wonder very much that Stevenson has written of such things in such a way: one speculates as to whether he conceals his own past.  Well, we have met Mr Hyde, and he is an unpleasant fellow. I cannot wait to meet Doctor Jekyll: perhaps he is more congenial. Shall I begin, Holmes? This next chapter is entitled ‘The Search for Mr Hyde,’ so we may not be about to meet the doctor yet.’

‘Good: begin. But first you might give me a little more afghan: my feet are cold.’

He smiled and leaned back. ‘Lean on me, and tuck your feet up – now put the fold around them. There, my dear friend, that is better. Are you comfortable now?’

‘Always with you, my dear John.’ I touched his cheek. ‘Always.’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe a great debt to George Nathaniel Curzon, traveller in Persia, for his descriptions and distances. I don't think we'd have got along, but I appreciate his pedantic fidelity to detail.
> 
> I do look forward to Mr H A Cumberbatch arriving at Angora. He will be there in a month or so, as will Holmes. 
> 
> Anyone interested in the Persian situation and the politics is welcome to message me on Tumblr, where I am happy to discuss it.
> 
> All names of characters at the British legations and elsewhere were actually there at the time stated. When I put words into their mouths, they are based on any published writings of theirs I can find.
> 
> In the paragraph that begins 'From the centre of Isfahan . . .' lovers of Gerald Manley Hopkins may recognise echoes from 'The Alchemist', a poem I thought particularly appropriate for Holmes.
> 
> I hope, if I have any Muslim readers, that they will find I have been sufficiently respectful in describing Qom, (spelled Kum by British people at this time), one of the holy places of Persia.
> 
> Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was published on January 9th or 10th 1886. It attracted little attention until the end of that month, was reviewed by the Times, and then took off: it was a book that was peculiarly fascinating to the Victorian character as addressing many of the era's spiritual concerns.
> 
> Harris's in the Strand still sells the cologne that Watson bought for Holmes.
> 
> We met Housman earlier in the tale, via a flashback of Holmes remembering his talking to Watson. The events around his disappearance are as stated: Holmes finding him is not, although he might well have been asked. Housman went on to become one of the most famous classical scholars of all time, and a renowned poet, but he never stopped loving Moses Jackson.
> 
> Knights' case, in all its oddity, is detailed in the Norfolk newspapers of the time. Alas, the judge's condemnation of sodomy was real, not feigned as here.
> 
> Holmes and Watson's conversation in the train on the way back from Norfolk was pretty typical of the zeitgeist.
> 
> Of course Holmes think he is not an addict. He can stop using at any time.
> 
> I have replaced the villain in The Beryl Coronet with Moran, and added the twist that the beryls as presented to Holder were fake as both these things fit better into my narrative. And anyway, Watson has always been an unreliable narrator.
> 
> Watson's quote about Labouchere - how much longer, O Catiline, will you continue to abuse our patience - is the opening of the first of Cicero's Catiline orations. Cicero did not like Catiline, and I confess to not being very fond of Cicero, but he had a splendid flow of invective when he was on a roll.
> 
> Holmes' quote about the stars is from the book of Job, Chapter 38. 
> 
> What is Moriarty playing at? I really do not know . . . yet. It seemed to me entirely fitting that he should live in the house with two doors. 
> 
> Chrysostom literally means 'Golden mouth' in Greek. He was one of the early fathers of the Catholic Church, a man renowned for his persuasive eloquence. To speak with a forked tongue is of course, to speak falsely.
> 
> As for John Hunter - oh, read about him: he is fascinating, and his operation on the popliteal artery is still famous. In London, you can visit the Hunterian Museum where all his pickled anatomical specimens are displayed in their (somewhet faded now) glory. His career is also considered to be an influence on Stevenson's characterisation of Dr Jekyll.
> 
> The dating of Wisteria Lodge is notoriously problematical: it cannot have taken place on the given date - 1892 - since this is in the middle of the Hiatus. I have therefore placed it where it is convenient for me - although it is often allocated to post-Hiatus, based on the number of previous cases Watson mentions. However, Watson being a totally unreliable narrator who often gets his dates muddled, and mentions things out of chronological order, I felt it better to place it here, just after the Labouchere Amendment, since it is a case with a definite homosexual subtext - not one but TWO m/m couples: Eccles and Garcia, and Murillo and Lopez. 
> 
> I'm sorry about Gregson's homophobia. It's disappointing.
> 
> Discovering gay subtext in published works is not new, you see. Holmes and Watson have a lot to think about with Stevenson's book.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All French has been translated by me: inaccuracies are deliberate and Watson's!
> 
> T/W Discussion of Holmes' cocaine use and addiction.

Since First I Saw Your Face Part 14

****

**_My dear Sherlock,_ **

**Holmes closes his eyes. He puts the paper down, picks it up again, presses it flat between his hands. He dreads what is within. A week after his departure from Tehran, a telegram had arrived at the embassy, and, missing him there, was delivered by a fast courier as he was making his laborious way to Tabreez.**

**‘ _W injured in street brawl,’_ it read, ‘ _Safe: do not fear. Letter follows.’_**

**Now, sitting at the over-ornamented table in the sickly heat of his room, he  opens the sheet for which he has been waiting several days:**

**_My dear Sherlock,_ **

**_Ever the crusading knight, your Watson received an injury or two whilst endeavouring to rescue a young woman from assault. I am assured the damage, apart from a cracked rib, is superficial. I greatly regret I was not able to prevent this from happening, but he had eluded the guard we had set upon him – how I do not know – for long enough for your urchins to lose sight of him. When they picked up his trail again, he was upon Westminster Bridge and engaged in a fight to protect the ‘honour’ of a wretched girl who doubtless lost hers long ago. Fortunately for him, the lads were prompt in summoning a constable who dealt with the situation effectively. Effectively - and none too soon, for Watson swooned at the roadside, and was taken to Barts on a handcart, where his ribs were strapped and his bruises salved._ **

**_What he was doing out in such a place at the dead of night, I dread to think. I have visited him, and can get no reply from him of what his intentions were, for he maintained a cold silence on the subject throughout my visit, relaxing his severity only as I stood to take my leave at the end -  and then no further than to enquire whether, if you were alive, he was to be allowed to know anything of your whereabouts.  I explained you were presently travelling in Asia, on government business connected with the late Professor Moriarty, and I could not say when you would return._ **

**_He asked if I knew what had happened at Reichenbach. I told him the truth: you had not told me. He suggested he might be permitted to write to you. I explained it might be unwise because you were working under an alias, and that we ourselves used a cipher. He uttered an exclamation I took to be one of disgust, but said nothing further. I asked if there was anything else I could do for him. He expressed a preference, worded in curt and military manner, for my room, rather than my company, and finding myself thus unwelcome, I thought it best to go. I have ordered your boys to keep a doubly strict watch on him: I dare not let him elude me again, for this time we might not be so fortunate._ **

**_I left the house immediately – in a state, I confess, of some considerable disquietude, for he is formidable if roused, a peppery, authoritative little man even when unable to articulate clearly because of a swollen nose, and when squinting from one half-closed eye. At the garden gate I chanced upon Inspector Lestrade, who clapped me rather familiarly upon the shoulder, and asked how I had found the good doctor. I explained he was low in his spirits and uneven in mood, and he asked whether I thought he was fit for any exertion yet. I told the Inspector about Watson’s injuries, and warned Lestrade he was still not capable of much, but perhaps a little activity to relieve his grief and ennui would be good for him._ **

**_Lestrade said he had but recently come from the Forest Gate District School where children from the Poplar and Whitechapel Workhouse Unions were maintained, and where, only a few days ago, a severe illness had broken out: extreme gastric disturbances with vomiting and purging, spreading to as many as a hundred and thirty children over the week, with two dead.  It appeared an enquiry had been adjourned for a fortnight to enable the children to recover, and for full investigations to be made, there being a suspicion some poisonous substance had been administered to them. I asked Lestrade what his intention was, bringing this terrible news to a man already grieving. He said he had never known John Watson to turn his back on a child in difficulty no matter how low he was feeling -  and here were dozens of the poor little wretches in desperate want of good doctoring and attentive care: did I not think the man needed to know he could still do some good in the world?_ **

**_I agreed, but cautioned him that Watson was barely back on his feet, to which he replied Mrs Hudson and Mrs Lestrade believed him to be deceiving us all on that point, and were daily in the expectation he would give them the slip and decamp to the continent, there to put an end to himself: might it not be better, then, to make him occupy himself with a situation both his heart and his honour would forbid him to leave?_ **

**_I reflected upon the fact that Watson had been tracked down to Westminster Bridge, and assented to the Inspector’s plan. I have long since given up wondering, my dear brother, why you consider Lestrade to be the best of the Scotland Yard detectives, for he has proved his worth time and time again, but I have never, I confess, valued him for his good sense and excellent heart, as much as I did on that day. He entered the doctor’s house with my goodwill and heartfelt thanks. I returned to the Diogenes  – really, Sherlock, I have never before exerted myself as much as I do on behalf of your friend - where I was later informed that Watson had left in a cab with Lestrade shortly after my departure, ‘an’ ‘e was in a tearin’ ‘urry, Sir, but ‘e’d shaved hisself, Sir, the which ‘e ‘asn’t done fer a bit, so I reck’n ‘e’d be feelin’ better.’ (You see I endeavour to reproduce the vernacular.)_ **

**_I have made a grave error – so have we both - in agreeing you should go to Baghdad and Damascus. You must not.  It will put weeks on your journey, and although the affairs of state are pressing, your happiness, and his are of more import. You and Mactear have acquitted yourselves nobly in Tehran with these oil and geological surveys, which are of great use to us. It is unfortunate the major discovery of both oil and copper was made by the Russians, not by yourselves, and more unlucky still we could not, in the end, prevent the contract for the Persian railway going to our Russian Machiavel, Poliakoff – but at least you have sown enough doubt in the Shah’s mind to ensure he does not cleave only to Russia. That he will still divide his favours between the Bear and the Lion was all we could hope for._ **

**_As far as Moran is concerned, you have done excellent work in weeding out the men he has suborned or threatened into treachery: their replacements are even now travelling to the region. I have already set a lesser tail upon him, and we must now trust to the reports of cholera to drive him from the Arabian Peninsula. (Although upon reflection, perhaps not: it would be the simplest solution. I should be sorry to lose the intelligence we hope to obtain from him when he is eventually caught, but his death would certainly be an acceptable alternative.) As for the cholera,  it is also on account of the increasing talk of its spread that I do not wish you to travel thither. You said to me the game was not worth the candle: I cannot agree – but your life, Sherlock, your life is worth far more than the Game. I cannot have you suffer so; moreover Lascelles’ report of you from Tehran disturbed me exceedingly. You must, you shall, come home._ **

**_When you have completed your work in Tabreez, direct your steps straight to Aleppo, and thence for Angora. I have communicated with Curzon, who has, as you know, travelled much in the region, and he assures me it will be faster to take the route by Dyarbekir and Gaziantep than to attempt to reach Trabzon, go along the Caspian Coast and then down. Once in Angora, Cumberbatch will see you straight to Constantinople, and if we are fortunate, we may have you home by Martinmas at the latest._ **

**_I heard also from Lascelles, by the way, that the rumour I asked you to investigate about a pitiful group of English child acrobats and tumblers dragged through Arabia and Persia by a cruel master is groundless.  It was recently the subject of a question in the House: I am amazed, as always, how the Members can become indignant about the veriest breath of a rumour if it appears to implicate foreigners in the ill-treatment of English children abroad, while successfully ignoring the poverty and destitution of English children on their doorstep. But so wags the world, sadly._ **

**_Dear me, brother, what an unconscionable deal of ink I have expended upon you today: I shall endeavour not to do so again. I would you had not gone off on this wild goose chase, or if you had, you had not involved yourself in the Game . . . although I agree it has worked to our advantage, once we understood the full extent of Moran’s involvement. And I wish I had not allowed love of country to persuade me to hold you to your course. I shall not do so longer: I wish you to consider yourself at full liberty. Return, Sherlock. I can in all conscience advise you to do nothing else. And pray take care of yourself. You are missed, more than you know._ **

**_Your most attached brother, Mycroft._ **

**Holmes sits with his head in his hands. He is cold with fear. He can see, in his mind’s eye, the bridge, its clean lines washed by a gibbous moon, the black, turbulent waters roiling underneath, small eddies on the surface deceiving the eye as to the power of the current . . .**

**_. . . I passed him once on a bridge, you know – Westminster, I believe it was - in a cold January dawn. I was sorely tempted to end his pining by tipping up his heels and assisting him to the watery end he so clearly longed for . . ._**

**Moran’s words ring in his ears. How close is Watson to making an end of it all, he asks himself? He will no longer rely on Mycroft, no longer play this game which is not a game, no longer toy with a good man’s happiness, but intervene. No country, no crown on earth is worth John’s life. He picks up a pen, closes his eyes and endeavours to recall a happier time, to summon the past to mind . . .**

 . . . ‘This is a powerful passage,’ Watson opened our final volume of Dumas. ‘I am not sure I have the meaning off pat yet, Holmes: would you help me?’

I edged a little closer to his side, wishing I could lean into him further, embrace him, slip an arm around his waist under his gown. Our intimacy progressed – he had, indeed embraced me in similar fashion, the previous night under the moon – but I was too uncertain of my ground to make further advances. We had walked arm in arm or hand in hand for hours, in a landscape transfigured by mysteries of light and shadow, and returning at length at moonset, he had stood breast to breast with me for a second before bidding me goodnight and turning away to his own room. Now, in the cold light of day, no moon-madness running in our veins, I was too timid to ask for all I wanted. And Watson was himself again: the quiet and sober doctor. The smaller intimacy of reading together that last day of our holiday was all I could hope for.

‘What is it you find difficult?’ I looked at the book. ‘Ah, it is where the Count confronts Maximilian, after Valentine’s death, bidding him not to despair. What do you not understand? Read to me, and then translate: I shall correct you where needed. You may omit their encounter in the cemetery of Père Lachaise, but begin here, where the Count has entered the room by force. Recount to me what happens, so I am certain you have the meaning.’

‘Monte Cristo has seen the increasing despair of Maximilian after Valentine’s death. Maximilian avoids the Count, because he promised to save Valentine, but did not. Failing to make the lad listen to him, the Count follows him home and breaks into his room, arriving just in time to stop him blowing his brains out.’

I saw him shiver then, and nodded. ‘I know, Watson. You do not need to elaborate, to explain. Indeed, we both know, do we not?’

He gave me a speaking glance. ‘Yes. You know Holmes . . . I . . .’

‘Continue then: _‘Vous voyez bien que vous vouliez vous tuer! Morrel, dit le comte, c'est écrit!’_ What does that mean?’

 _‘_ You see – no, you know - you wish to kill yourself, Morrel, said the Count: you have written it.’

‘Good: continue in French, then translate.’

 _‘Eh bien, s'écria Morrel, passant sans transition de l'apparence du calme à l'expression de la violence; eh bien, quand cela serait, quand j'aurais décidé de tourner sur moi le canon de ce pistolet, qui m'en empêcherait?’_ Well, cried Morrel, passing without  - hesitation – no, without, ah, delay, change – from the, the appearance of calm to an expression of violence, when that will be, when I have decided to turn upon myself the pistol or the cannon – no, Holmes, I cannot be right there, wait: the barrel of this pistol – who will prevent me.’

‘Your correction was well done. It is an affecting passage: I would not be the Count in this moment, conscious he has erred, that he miscalculated in his plan of revenge. How responsible he must feel: Morrel says to him _‘Toutes mes espérances sont ruinées, mon cœur est brisé, ma vie est éteinte, il n'y a plus que deuil et dégoût autour de moi; la terre est devenue de la cendre; toute voix humaine me déchire.’_ Translate, Watson!’

‘All my hopes are blighted, my heart is broken, my life extinguished, there is nothing around me but, but mourning and disgust; earth has become as ashes, and human voices tear at me. _‘C'est pitié que de me laisser mourir, car si vous ne me laissez mourir je perdrai la raison, je deviendrai fou.’_ It is a mercy to let me die, he tells the Count, for if I live I shall lose my reason and become mad.’

‘Read on; translate, Watson.’

 _‘Voyons, dites, monsieur, quand je dirai cela, quand on verra que je le dis avec les angoisses et les larmes de mon cœur, me répondra-t-on: Vous avez tort? M'empêchera-t-on de n'être pas le plus malheureux? Dites, monsieur, dites, est-ce vous qui aurez ce courage?’_ When, sir, I tell you all this with tears of heartfelt anguish, can you reply that I am wrong, can you prevent my putting an end to my miserable existence? Tell me, sir, could you have the courage to do so?’ Watson wiped his eyes. ‘Oh God, Holmes, this is bitter. So bitter. Poor lad, poor broken-hearted lad: he believes that all he loved so dearly is stark and cold in the tomb. And he thought Monte Cristo could save his beloved, he trusted him . . .’

‘My dear! Do you wish to stop?’ I hated to see him so distressed, and would happily have thrown the volume aside, but he shook his head.

‘No, go on. I want to continue, Holmes.’ He spread his handkerchief on his knee. ‘Go on.’

‘Very well, but we shall stop if you wish: lift only a finger, and I shall close the book. In any case, the Count insists on being obeyed, despite Maximilian’s anger, his sorrow, his sense that he has been cruelly betrayed, his jeering at Monte Cristo: ‘ _vous qui affectez toutes les ressources de l'intelligence, toutes les puissances de la matière; vous qui jouez ou plutôt qui faites semblant de jouer le rôle de la Providence, et qui n'avez pas même eu le pouvoir’:_ you who pretend to understand everything, even the hidden sources of knowledge - and who play, or pretend to play at being Providence, and have no power - railing at him thus for not having saved his beloved – and he tells Morrel in this extremity that he has not only the power but the courage to prevent him from dying, and withal the right . . . It is a bold claim to make to a man so racked with torment. A bold claim. I do not know whether I would dare to make it to one so desperate. And Morrel rejects it: he tells the Count, his friend who has cared for and supported him ‘you are hateful in my eyes.’’

‘Morrel has reason, for his seeming friend has betrayed him, and he is deep in grief. He trusted, and was lost: a man does not trust so a second time. Can there be a happy ending, Holmes? Can there truly be any happiness after this? Why does he not simply tell Morrel ‘Valentine lives’? Would it not be kinder?’

‘I  - I do not know, Watson. He has his reasons, I suppose. Should Morrel not trust him? Perhaps he does not say because of what follows: he reveals himself as the saviour of old M. Morrel; as one having a right to demand allegiance from Maximilian and be obeyed. And, and one could say that no, he is not right in what he does. Desire for vengeance has warped his spirit, removed him from what is human. Moreover he is in the habit of, of regarding himself as, as higher than other men. He loves Morrel – as a son, perhaps, or a younger brother – but his authority must be absolute. And he tests their friendship to see if it will hold.’

‘There are not many friendships which would stand such a test, Holmes. Monte Cristo is cruel, in my view. But he is a complex man with complex motives, and to serve his purpose, he must have Morrel follow blindly, like a soldier does.’

‘Would such an act extinguish your friendship, as it has done Morrel’s for the Count?’

‘It is a severe test. I do not know how a man could contemplate it. How many friends may a man have, that they can ask the extreme of each other? It is to say, ‘die at my bidding, friend, or hold off the manner of your death. To say ‘trust me’ for no reason I can tell you. There are not many friendships so deep - ’

‘ – then you would not?’

‘ – I had not finished: do not catch up my words so quickly. I would, yes. For you, Holmes, indeed I would. For no-one on this earth but you.’

‘Truly, yours is the love of Pythias for Damon.’ I knew my voice shook. ‘Dear Watson such faith, such loyalty is an inestimable gift. I do not, I cannot, deserve it. I am curt sometimes, and cruel, and impatient. I am not so worthy as to merit that loyalty.’

‘Never cruel to me, Holmes. And you are not what you once were. You are gentler, kinder. You allow heart to direct reason, as well as reason to conquer heart.’

‘If I am kinder, it is because of you: I have not forgotten the lesson you taught me over poor Trevelyan. You have saved me from my worse self.’

‘As you have saved me from mine. We have never discussed it much - ’

‘ – and we need not, if you do not wish - ’

‘ – but had I not met you, that day in Barts, I do not think it would have been long before I went to my death, as many another lonely soldier had done and will do. All had been stripped from me, purpose, health, the prospect of a decent life. And then you saved me. So yes, I owe you my life, my dear fellow. I pray that someday I may offer you something of value in its place.’

‘You give me yourself, every day. I want nothing more. And you would truly act as Morrel does here? You would consent to live, albeit with reservation?’

‘I would. Let us talk no more, Holmes, but read on. I can understand this passage here, where Monte Cristo reveals himself as Dantès and exacts silence and allegiance from Morrel, where Julie and Emanuel express their thanks and gratitude, and the two men are left alone, with Morrel once more sunk in the deepest melancholy. Some colloquy passes between them; the Count exhorting his friend ‘ _Vivez! un jour viendra où vous serez heureux et où vous bénirez la vie’:_ that is . . .’

‘Let me speak it, Watson.’ I turned the page of the book. ‘Live: a day will come when you will be happy, when you will bless life itself . . .’ and Morrel continues to refuse to believe. But the Count tells him, as he mourns his lost love – let me read this; it is not easy: _‘Regarde-moi, Morrel, dit Monte-Cristo avec cette solennité qui, dans certaines occasions, le faisait si grand et si persuasif; regarde-moi, je n'ai ni larmes dans les yeux, ni fièvre dans les veines, ni battements funèbres dans le cœur, cependant je te vois souffrir, toi, Maximilien, toi que j'aime comme j'aimerais mon fils: eh bien, cela ne te dit-il pas, Morrel, que la douleur est comme la vie, et qu'il y a toujours quelque chose d'inconnu au-delà?’_ Can you translate?’

‘Look at me, Morrel, said Monte Cristo, with the solemnity – no, I prefer gravity – that on certain occasions made him so – so noble? Will that do? Yes - noble and persuasive; look at me. I have no tears in my eyes, no fever in my veins, no deadly palpitation of the heart – why, he expresses himself in almost medical terms, our Count – yet I see you suffer – you, Maximilian, whom I love as I would love my son – does that not tell you, Morrel, that sorrow is like to life: that there is always something which is unknown . . . Holmes: this distresses me. Unbearably.’

‘Watson, you go from strength to strength. You translate perfectly. But why do you find it distressing? Dumas is a great writer: see how he builds and builds the tension to the denouement. It is exquisite, beautiful, as when one hears the violin soar and soar until the climax. Do not be distressed: it is only a book, my dear fellow!’

‘But I cannot like the Count’s actions, Holmes: I would never do such a thing. Why does he let his friend suffer, why can he not simply tell Morrel: Valentine lives, you will be re-united? Is it so hard to say to the man ‘happiness awaits you’? He cannot feel as other men do: he cannot have a heart! Not to console his friend, and he in such torment, so close to ending his life? Why does he not make all plain?’

‘Is not that the point of the story, Watson? Monte Cristo has pursued revenge to the exception of all else, he has arrogated to himself the mantle of godhood, he presumes to act as the deity in working out his revenge. He wished to punish those who injured him: his enemy de Villefort most of all, only to find that the cherished son of the only family he intended to reward had fallen in love with de Villefort’s daughter. His plans are thrown awry, he will save – he does save - Valentine, but he cannot deviate from the game he plays. He will not, rather. And it is in this that he fails, it is in this that he becomes less than a hero. He shows the inhumanity of which he is capable, and we see revealed in full his arrogance, his conceit, his selfish disdain for the feelings of others. It is well done. It is extremely well done.’

‘I wished to see him as a hero . . .’ Watson wiped his eyes again. ‘But he will not do that simple thing, he will not tell his friend: your beloved lives.’

‘But he bids him hope. Listen again: ‘ _Or, si je te prie, si je t'ordonne de vivre, Morrel, c'est dans la conviction qu'un jour tu me remercieras de t'avoir conservé la vie.’_ If I  beg you, if I order you to live, Morrel, it is in the belief that one day you will thank me for having preserved your life. And this he says after he has already hinted, indicated, that there is hope, that Morrel has hope. _‘Et vous me dites toujours d'espérer?’_ And you tell me always to hope, asks Morrel, and he replies that yes, Morrel must hope, for the Count has a means to cure him.’

‘ _Je te dis d'espérer, parce que je sais un moyen de te guérir.’_ It is still not enough, Holmes. The Count equivocates and temporises; he cannot be plain and honest. You would not act so yourself. Surely, you cannot defend him!’

‘I! Why do you place me in Monte Cristo’s position? Am I ever likely to have life or death in my gift? I am no hero, no protagonist of a fine story. If either of us is fitted to be a hero, Watson, it is you.’

‘I am no hero neither. And you have more heart than to be cruel, Holmes. You would not behave as the Count does. I do not believe you could be so cruel . . .’

**. . . as he returns from the past, Holmes’ eyes are wet. He sits with his face in his hands for a long time, while the sunlight fades around him, then, lighting a single candle, takes pen and paper, and writes.**

**_Mycroft,_ **

**_I must be obeyed in this: do not cross me. You must give what I write below to Watson: he will understand it, as doubtless will you: it was you who first read the book with me, brother, that first summer after I was received into the family._ ** **_To you, Mycroft,  ‘_ ** _vous qui jouez ou plutôt qui faites semblant de jouer le rôle de la Providence’ **I address the words of Maximilian Morrel** : vous n'avez pas même le pouvoir’. _ **_Yours is no longer the power. Play no more at politics. As soon as I have completed my business here, I am for Aleppo, and then haste, haste, post-haste for England. I shall stay about business no longer. I thank you for releasing me from my obligations: what I can do for you will be done, but I must, I shall, return. Send me word of Moran, where he is, and what he does, for he has sworn to kill me. And guard John well: Moran’s spite against him is invincible. There are too many in London who will take up the assassin’s knife for money._ **

**_The message then: cut the paper; give it as I write it here, so that he may see my hand of write, and have proof._ **

**_John, do you remember?_** ‘ _Or, si je te prie, si je t'ordonne de vivre, Morrel, c'est dans la conviction qu'un jour tu me remercieras de t'avoir conservé la vie. Je te dis d'espérer, parce que je sais un moyen de te guérir._ _Espère, mon ami.’ **It is no lie. I am alive, John. I will return to you and explain all. I am sorry, my dear: I beg you will forgive me.**_

 ** _Give him this message, brother, and do not fail me. Tell him all you know: conceal nothing._** ** _And say to him this:_** ‘ _Vivez! un jour viendra où vous serez heureux et où vous bénirez la vie’_

**The paper is blotted with his tears. He seals the letter, and touches the bell.**

*********

In Watson’s lengthy absence on some professional call – he had been out all day about it: how I should tease him for his tardiness when he returned - I was engaged with my scrapbooks one summer afternoon, shortly after the events at Wisteria Lodge. The denouement of that affair had left both Watson and I shaken, for Inspector Gregson had investigated Scott Eccles with relentless efficiency. In the end, the wretched man had fled to the continent, there to lead the rootless, wandering life of all such fugitives from an unjust justice, at home everywhere and nowhere, exiled from their native land. Nor was he the only man who had suffered: Melville, the retired brewer at whose house he had met Garcia, had been sentenced to a term of penal servitude, as had many of those who frequented what, Gregson said, was little better than a male brothel.

Watson was braver than I when we were discussing it, saying to the Inspector that if it were a brothel, its shame lay in being a place where the body’s affections were bought from the poor and helpless, and sold to the cruel, not in who did what with whom. I winced, thinking it an indiscretion, and Gregson frowned, but then his brow cleared, and he said he would expect no other comment from Doctor Watson, whom all knew to be a staunch defender of the poor, but no friend to immorality. I thought Watson looked conscious for a moment but as he opened his mouth to reply, Gregson asked him some question or other about a constable at the yard who was in poor health and could do with being seen, and the matter passed off.

‘I cannot change who I am,’ he said to me when Gregson had left, and I had asked what he had intended to say. ‘I will stand for the defenceless. I must. Once I did not, because I did not know how. Now, I must, or stand a coward confessed. I felt near a coward there, not to challenge him.’

‘You speak of your sister.’ He had moved to the sofa; I followed him. ‘May I sit with you? My dear fellow, I know it. Your life is an expiation. But you are too hard on yourself: you were too young to understand what was happening until it was already too late, too powerless to effect change, too – let me say it – too beaten down yourself to rebel. You tell me that although I use reason, my heart guides it. Watson, you have a heart more tender than any I know. Let reason comfort it now, that it may be kinder to itself and to you.’

I placed my arm across his shoulders and he leaned into me. ‘ _You_ comfort my heart.’ I felt his body loosen into a sigh as it pressed against mine. ‘And yet, it is perilous comfort. Holmes, I feel – oh, I should not say this. I have always been, if not sure of my own courage, at least sure that I could continue to do right. The – how do I put this – the consciousness of  - of - the possibility of cowardice – confounds me. My mettle was tested on the battlefield: I thought myself a brave man, but when it came to it, I did not wish to return - ’

‘ - that is no more than sound common sense, Watson, not cowardice, for all love. A man is not required by some arcane moral law to rush headlong into destruction - ’

‘ – hush, you have never been a soldier: more is required of us. What would be common sense in you, is cowardice in me - ’

‘ – not so; I take issue with that, but continue, my dear fellow. You were explaining to me that the possibility of cowardice disturbs you, as if there has never been a man who has not, for at least once in his life, quailed before some threat that seems nothing to another but is everything, and all-terrible to him. I do not believe it is cowardice. What then?’

He sighed all at once. ‘I do not know. Nothing. It is nothing, I suppose. I feel – well, I am conscious of, of feelings, of thoughts, that have been foreign to me hitherto. It is not that I do not like whither they tend, it is more that they open – possibilities - that I had not considered before now, and those possibilities . . . Oh, I must stop: this is nothing but neurasthenia, a sickly, over-scrupulous, wearying questioning of myself that clouds, impedes right action. I will act as my honour demands, as my will and heart direct: let that be all. Forgive me, Holmes.’ He smiled. ‘See, the fit is over.’

‘I do not understand – entirely, - what you are saying,’ I told him, ‘but I know you are no coward. You will always act with honour and kindness and good sense; do not let your heart trouble itself with any consideration to the contrary. And if – if there are thoughts you wish to share, Watson, I – I will always listen to you. I know it is, perhaps, not usual for two Englishmen to speak of matters near their hearts – oh, I was schooled never to allow myself to express an emotion that might not sort with the character of a gentleman – but you and I – we are so - surely there need be no pretence between us, so close as we are?’ I could not meet his eye.

‘No.’ He looked away. ‘No, there should not be, so close as we are. Holmes . . . Sherlock . . . do you . . . do you mind?’

‘Mind?’

‘Closeness. That, that we are so -  I – well, damn it, when we – the other day, after the case – I was, I spoke of – David and Jonathan – I, I am very fond of you, my dear fellow. Exceedingly fond. I – as I said to you, this is, well, it is more than – more than friendship, it is more than comradeship – it is lo -  but,  . . .’ He paused. ‘It – we are closer than – Holmes, do you _mind_?’

For a moment I sat frozen, the words ‘I am in love with you,’ hovering on my tongue, then, as I felt him begin to move away from me, as if fearing my response, ‘No,’ I said. ‘I do not. I do not care – have never cared – what is proper, or what is, is usual, or what men should or should not do. You are dearer to me than anyone. I – I – like that you are, are, as you put it, ‘exceedingly fond’ of me: I am exceedingly fond of you too. I do not mind, and it does not matter. Here in our sanctum, in our home, we may do as we please.’

‘Yes.’ His tone was resolute, after the hesitation of a moment before. ‘I should very much like to hold you, Sherlock. May I do so?’

I had looked my answer, and his arms had enfolded me, gentle and strong. My head lay on his shoulder, and we had rested so for a long time. Now, reflecting on the last few days, days which had been enlivened by the most delightful affection, the closest companionship, I anticipated his return with some eagerness: we would eat, and then read together, of course, but I had prepared a musical feast for him as well. He loved my playing for him – and I, I loved to watch him as I played, his face a mirror for every gentle thought in his mind . . .

‘Mr Holmes!’ Mrs Hudson stood in the doorway, one hand pressed to her heart, ‘Come quickly, quickly! There’s a boy  - a young man downstairs – he says Dr Watson – he’s hurt - ’

I did not wait to hear the rest, but bade her send Billy after me, cast my books aside to snatch up my hat and flask, and took the stairs leaping, to find an ill-favoured, shock-haired lad I had never seen before hesitating on the front doorstep, twisting a grimy hat in his grimier hands.

‘Where is Dr Watson?’ I demanded, suppressing a desire to pounce on the creature and shake his bad news out of him. ‘What is it, what has happened?’

‘I were t’ tell ye to come along wi’ me, quick, an’ quiet like, and not to make any stir. Y’friend’s aw’right now, ‘n in no danger, I were to say, but y’ was not t’bring a p’licem’n. Will y’ come? The one as sent me said y’d give me money, and I were t’ give y’ this, as a tok’n of m’ truth.’

He handed me a handkerchief I well knew for Watson’s. Watson was nice about his linen: it was all of the finest weave, and his handkerchiefs were larger than usual for he used them indiscriminately to cleanse and bandage wounds, and had always a clean half dozen tucked into his medical bag. This had seen hard usage: bloody smears, drying rusty at the edges, stained its folds. I caught it from his hand.

‘What are you waiting for? Let us go. There will be ten shillings for you if you lead me right, and be quick about it. Come, make haste.’

I had thought I knew London, but half the rotten kennels he led me through, stinking of ordure, crammed with the refuse of distressful humanity, and seething with that humanity itself, I had never seen before. We went through byway after byway, passing through scenes of increasing desolation, until at last we wended our way through rather more salubrious streets, and came to an area that was familiar to me.

My escort stopped at the entrance to an alley, and held out his hand. ‘Gi’s the money, Mister. I ain’t goin’ furth’r ‘n this.’

‘No, that will do me lad, ye’ve done your work.’ A slender figure stepped out of the shadows. ‘I’m sure t’will not be Mr Holmes who scants ye of what’s due, will it now?’ He nodded at me, ‘Hand over the dibs, Sir, and see my messenger right, and I’ll take ye to the dear Doctor, an’ explain as we go along.’

‘Jack Saul,’ I said to that figure, thrusting four half-crowns into the paw outstretched to me. ‘Thank you, boy, and do not spend it on gin: it is for bread, do you hear me, and a pie or two. Jack Saul, what the devil is all this, and where is Dr Watson? And how do you come to be embroiled in our affairs?’

‘He’s sleepin’ off the knock on the head someone gave him.’ Jack’s voice was grim. He had changed since I had last seen him over the Dublin Castle affair, less light hearted, and with less soft grace about him. He had not coarsened with age – he was nearing thirty now - as it is often said rent boys do; indeed if anything he looked rather finer drawn than before -  thinner -  and I wondered if he had been finding times hard. Most men on the look out for a pretty face and willing hand preferred younger boys, after all.

‘He was attacked? The professional call was a decoy then, to lure him, and attack him?’ Someone must have planned violence against him: what better way to lure him in than the call of his precious duty?

‘Indeed and indeed t’was. But t’was to snare and not just to attack him, an’ so he was hurt resistin’. Now who is it ye have that dislikes ye, Mr Holmes? For my friend,’ his heavy emphasis on the word ‘friend’ turned it sour, ‘my friend, Andrew Grant – ye do not know the name - well for ye that ye do not - is well accustomed to tradin’ on his own account for a little extortion, but he will take a job of work for a client who wishes to harm another without turnin’ a hair. I daresay ye’ll have heard of the common bounce, Mr Holmes?’

He had been leading me through another maze of narrow alleys as we spoke, until we came to Nassau Street, where he paused at the door of a small, respectable looking house.

‘I have. Was that their intention, Jack? The old trap? Then I am grateful to you, you have saved him from worse than you know – or perhaps not,’ for I saw his wry smile, ‘no, you are not stupid. Well, I am very grateful to you.’

‘Save y’breath until you see him,’ he advised me, and opened the door.

It was a brothel, that much was clear, but a discreet brothel: the décor plain, and clean. A respectable looking woman in her seventies, dressed in black and with the severe air of a schoolmistress was in the hall, waiting, it appeared, for me.

‘Mr Holmes? I am Mrs Collins; my partner, Mr Dye and I keep house here. Your friend is in the upstairs bedroom on the left at the top of the stairs. Jack has promised you will make no trouble for us, Sir. I hope I can trust his word. I do not like dealings with the gentry save in the ordinary way of business.’

‘You can trust me, Madam. If you have helped my friend, I will be grateful to you, I promise you, and liberal to repay any expense . . .’

‘Jack said the gentleman was kind to him, doctored him for free. I do not want your money. We are not for hire here, Sir, not in that way at least.’ Her mouth had thinned, and her eyes were fierce. ‘Take your friend with you, when he is well, and leave us to ourselves. I would not have taken him in had this scapegrace not persuaded me.’

Her speech had a turn of refinement in it: I wondered who she was, and where she came from, and how she had come to running a cheap assignation house. ‘Madam, you have my word; I will cause no trouble for you. May I see my friend?’

‘Jack can take you up. He will not be fit to be moved for a day yet, I think. I will not turn out a sick man but the sooner I am rid of you the better. Well, go along then.’

I trod up the rickety stairs behind Jack. ‘How do you come into this? How did you find him?’

‘That’s a long story, Sir, an’ I’ll be telling it t’ye in front of the good doctor as well. ‘Tis here, just go in. He has a bell with him, ring when ye want me.’

The room was close and stifling, the windows tight shut, and the shabby curtains drawn across. In the gloom, Watson lay in a double bed, asleep. His face was deadly pale, dark bruises under each eye, his breathing stertorous. He had been given laudanum for his pain; the bottle, glass and spoon lay on the nightstand. A handkerchief the double of the one folded into my pocket bound his brow, and a rusty stain had seeped through it, dark in the middle, paler at the edges. His naked left arm lay straight at his side, his wrist strapped with another handkerchief. As I watched, he stirred in his drugged sleep, flexed the arm and moaned. I drew back the covers a little and shifted it gently into a more comfortable attitude, watching the lines of pain ease from his brow. He had been stripped to the waist, but in that close heat his torso gleamed with sweat and his face was flushed.

‘John,’ I eased the sheet back over him for his privacy, turning the grubby blanket atop it back to the foot of the bed, ‘John, wake up.’

I called him three times, but it was not until I gently took his uninjured hand and stroked the pulse point at his wrist, that his heavy lids fluttered open, and shut again.

‘John,’ I said. ‘My dear, my dear fellow, can you wake for me?’  If he had had a head injury, the worst thing was to let him sleep. ‘John, wake for me, come now . . .’

‘Sherlock.’ His voice was a heavy mumble, tongue and lips dulled by the drug. ‘Holmes, where - ?’ He raised his hand, turning it to clasp mine. ‘You came to me.’

‘Of course.’ I wanted to sit beside him, gather him up in my arms and hold him, kiss and cosset him, but I knew I should not. Not there, not then, Alas, as I wanted to, not ever. ‘John, what happened? How did you come here?’

‘There was a boy. Not one of ours, but he said a doctor was needed: he went to Mrs Hudson, who sent him on to Bart’s with the message. You were out, at the Yard.’ He coughed, a ragged, tearing sound. ‘Water.’

I poured from the jug on the nightstand and offered the cup, but he could not raise himself enough to take it, so I moved to sit behind him and lift him against my shoulder. I offered the cup again and he sipped cautiously, wincing. ‘The room is spinning. My head. Oh God, my head. Holmes, I’m going to – I - ’

I hooked the utensil out from under the bed with my foot, and leaned perilously to pick it up. It was empty, thank god – and I got it to his mouth just in time, holding him, while he heaved and retched, bringing up water and bile. He was sweating when it was over. I wiped his mouth with my handkerchief. ‘John, I must get you home, where you can be cared for; you cannot stay here.’ I reached for the bell. ‘Let me ring for Jack, and he can go and get Billy, send him for Lestrade. He will help.’

‘Wait,’ He grasped my wrist. ‘Holmes, you cannot send for Lestrade. This house is a brothel; he cannot find me here. You don’t understand – it was a trap, I was to be – to be put in a compromising position, and it to be used for blackmail. I - ’ He broke off, coughing again, and again I was forced to reach for the utensil. His heaves were dry this time: there was nothing left in him. I offered water when it was over, and he drank greedily, protesting when I took the cup away.

‘Too much, too fast and you will vomit again.’ I picked up the hand-bell, let it sound once, twice. ‘Very well, I will not send for Lestrade, but if you are in trouble we must leave here now, and I must have a cab, anything.’

‘Jack will protect us. He already has. I hear steps: Holmes, lay me down, you cannot hold me so here. As it is we will have to pay - ’

‘Hush, lie still: I care not. Pay whom? Not Jack, surely?’

‘Indeed, and ye will not. It is meself that’s grateful to ye, Doctor, and always will be. And ye’ll not be givin’ money to Andy neither: I’ve told him he’s to leave me friends alone, no matter who’s offerin’ him good silver.’ He had a cup of tea in his hands as he came in, and offered it to me. ‘Here, give him this, mayhap it’ll revive him a little.’

Ignoring Watson’s feeble protests, I propped him higher against my shoulder and handed him the tea, but his hand shook so much the cup rattled in the saucer, and I had to hold it to his lips. I looked up at Jack. ‘Enough delays, Jack Saul; tell me now what is to be told. Watson is awake to hear and we must be away as soon as we can be. And do not, do not, I beg you, make a jest of  - of any of this.’

His eyes were sad. ‘Tis not meself that’ll be making a jest of friendship: indeed I’m after envyin’ ye for it. Well then, ‘twas like this . . .’

Jack had, it transpired, been working that afternoon, not in the house in Nassau Street, but in another place in Cleveland Street that catered solely for men, where he was paid for taking gentlemen to assignations with younger lads than he, and occasionally staying to take part if another was wanted. The proprietor, Hammond, had a better class of clientele than Emma Collins, but was not above a little shady business from time to time. After one such assignation, Jack had been on his way down the back-stairs, when a fellow he knew – one Andrew Grant, known as Queen Anne, a twenty-one year old Scottish boy, with a handsome face and a vicious temper – had hailed him, asking if he wanted to join in a bit of sport.

He had, he told, Jack, a respectable doctor in a back room, and was to be paid generously for putting him in a situation he could be blackmailed for. His capture had proved unexpectedly troublesome, however, and Grant had had to have one Herbert Coulton, his colleague in the common bounce, (and fresh out of eighteen months hard labour for demanding money with menaces) lay the fellow out. It would take the three of them, he fancied, to handle their quarry when he came round, so did Jack want to be in on the game for a cut of the money? Jack was hard-up at the time, as he confessed to us quite freely, and although he did not like blackmail had wavered. Grant, pressing his advantage, had told him more.

It was the prettiest thing, he’d told Jack, for this doctor, a kindly, respectable man well known to the street lads, had been beguiled by one he did not know to go and render urgent assistance to a poor woman in the throes of childbirth, and had fallen into the trap like a lamb. It had only gone wrong for Grant when the doctor, after being taken to some wretched kennel, and suspicious of arriving at a house where there were no signs of woman present, no signs of family living, nor any midwife in attendance, had declined to go into the room where his supposed patient lay -  and had turned to go, at which point Coulton had simply swung at his head from behind with a billet of wood, and laid him out cold.

By this point in the story, said Jack, he had entertained some suspicion – there were not so many kindly doctors in London who could be called upon by any street urchin after all, and it was, he well knew, Watson’s medical beat, as it were. He assented, he said, to Grant’s suggestion, to see whether those suspicions were correct. (And if he smoothed over this story after the fact, I did not blame him; a man may be driven to many things for want of money, and in the pinch he had proved himself loyal.) Once there, and confirming that it was his own Doctor Watson, unconscious and stripped to his smalls on the filthy bed, he had terrified Grant and Coulton by telling them how they would be hunted down by Mr Sherlock Holmes and Scotland Yard with whom this same kindly doctor worked. No pitch would stick to Watson, he had said, for he was above suspicion, and exceedingly well in with the authorities, but they would themselves be defiled: Coulton, Jack told them, would certainly end up before the magistrate again, and his punishment be more severe: Grant, as a first offender – that the magistrates knew of – might be let off more lightly, but his anonymity would be gone, and the police would have him in their sights. So they had chosen the wrong pigeon for the plucking, and must let him fly.

Coulton, who did not want to do time again and had only been an accessory, was easy to persuade. Grant, Jack told us, was harder: in fear of the principals in the business who had paid him. Who they were, he did not know for the interview had taken place with him blindfolded, and no names had been mentioned, but there were three men, and the one who spoke most, had been he thought, a soldier, because of the way he commanded. It had been hard to persuade Grant to submit, but Jack had persevered, speaking high, and threatening his colleague will all manner of dire consequences. At length they had consented to hand Watson over, and concoct a story of failure for the principals who had hired Grant.

‘A soldier.’ I looked at Watson and could see his thought: was this, perhaps, Moran’s revenge for the insult he had been offered? It would bear investigation, but not now. For now, the task was to get Watson home again. How, I asked Jack, had he been conveyed from Cleveland Street in the first place? He had been bundled privily into a cab, it appeared, one of those cabs used for conveying gay girls about the city: the driver was in the pay of Hammond’s mistress, and since Watson had been coming round from the blow, laudanum had been administered so he could be transported with no trouble. He was sorry for this, Jack assured me, but his only thought had been to get Watson away from Grant, and he had not been able to be too nice in his methods. Once at Nassau Street, Watson had roused enough to comprehend the situation, and Jack, after dosing him again and leaving him to sleep, had sent for me.

‘And I am grateful to you,’ I told him, ‘more than you can imagine. Shake hands with me, Jack, and tell me what I can do for you to show it. If it is money you are in need of, you may have aught you need with my goodwill.’

He looked wistful, poor man, and bit his lip. ‘T’was not for money, I did it. T’was for Dr Watson’s kindness, when not many are kind to me.’

‘No, but if you are in difficulty of course we must help.’ Watson’s voice wavered. ‘Holmes, my dear fellow, take the damn tea away: if I have more, it is like to come up as the water did, and I have no wish to vomit again.’

‘You look green,’ I said to him. ‘Jack, we can settle all else back at Baker Street, but how can we procure a carriage? Although, Watson, I wish you will let me call Lestrade: we could be home in a trice with his aid. And Grant must certainly be brought to brook, and this Coulton too.’

‘Then you condemn Jack along with them. They will turn and accuse him, and it will be two against one. We cannot involve Lestrade: Jack is right. And what if it is not Lestrade who is sent to deal with this? What if it is Gregson? Holmes, I am in no fit case to argue with you for the love of God: my head is about to split. Take me home, I beg you, and let there be no more discussion today.’

*****

Watson was ill for some days after his return home, indeed the journey home nearly did for him, for we conveyed him secretly in a dilapidated closed carriage that jolted and banged over the cobbles and wrung suppressed moans from him at every turn of the wheel. Jack and I had to support him upstairs past a shocked Mrs Hudson, and put him to bed in my bedroom, as being more convenient. The wound on his head bled again when I eased the bandage off and I had to bathe it loose, with his head on a towel on my pillow. I called Moore Agar in to see him, and told him the facts of the case: Agar could be trusted, for he was an invert as was I. He suspected me. I knew he suspected me for I found myself incapable of concealing either my concern or my affection for Watson when he was there, but he would say nothing.

He directed that Watson should lie in the dark, to rest his aching head and eyes, and that he should have a light diet. In fact he ate little for three or four days: the knot on the back of his skull made him nauseous and dizzy. I tried him with sips of water, the light broths Mrs Hudson made, dry biscuit, and a tea of ginger root, but he could keep nothing down for full forty-eight hours, and had no appetite for some days after that. Moore Agar offered to be our messenger to Bart’s, saying that Watson was unwell, and I accepted thankfully, but on the fifth day after his – abduction, I suppose I must call it - came Lestrade, in the middle of the morning, to enquire why he had seen neither of us.

‘Inspector Lestrade is below, Mr Holmes, asking after you.’ Mrs Hudson had tapped on my bedroom door. ‘Will you see him?’

‘Tell him to go away.’ I dipped a cloth in lavender water, wrung it out, and placed it on Watson’s brow; he lay in an uneasy sleep, and I did not want to wake him, but I could see from his frown, and the lines around his eyes and mouth that he was in pain. ‘I do not have time for his nonsense.’

She tapped again. ‘Mr Holmes, may I come in? I think you would be best advised to see him, Sir. This is the second time he has come round asking for you. I expect it is because you have not replied to the seven messages he sent you.’

‘Watson is sleeping. You will wake him, and the doctor will be here soon enough. I do not have time to speak to the Inspector. You may bring the broth - and see that it is chicken this time, and not mutton – at twelve.’ I went to the door, opening it a crack, ‘Do go away, Mrs Hudson, I can look after J – Watson – very well on my own. I do not wish to leave him while he is in this case: excitement can be injurious to the brain when the skull has taken a blow. Do you want him in a brain fever?’

‘Mr Holmes, Dr Agar assures me that he will not be in a brain fever: he told me so yesterday. He just requires quiet and good tending for a few days, and that is what we are providing. You had better come out, Sir, because I am sending the Inspector up for you to talk to. I can very well sit with Dr Watson for a few minutes, and if he should wake, I shall call you directly. And the Inspector looks as if he could do with a bite of breakfast, so I am sending Janey with coffee and eggs and bacon for both of you. Now come out, if you please, Sir, and be sensible.’

‘Holmes . . . .’ it was the thread of a whisper from the bed. ‘Holmes, do as Mrs Hudson says. You have not left my side for days; and if I have not eaten, then neither have you. I shall have you fainting from inanition if you do not eat, and then where will I be?’

‘Now you have woken him, Mrs Hudson; it is most inconsiderate of you.’

‘Holmes, be reasonable. Mrs Hudson, good morning: pray forgive me for speaking to you unshaven and in such unseemly disorder. Would you be so kind as to bring me some tea, and send up the Inspector? Mr Holmes will receive him, of course, and I should like to see him myself.’

‘Thank you, Doctor. I shall do so directly.’ That infuriating woman let go of the door handle, and marched out, shutting the door of our drawing room, with, I thought, unnecessary triumph. I turned to Watson. ‘John, if you agitate yourself, I cannot answer for the consequences to your head. What are you about? Moore Agar said you were to remain calm.’

‘I am calm. Come to me, Holmes. Sherlock . . .’

I went to his bedside, and he caught my hand and tugged me down to sit on the edge of his bed. ‘Dear Sherlock . . . you care for me so tenderly. Thank you, my dear fellow. Never had man a gentler, kinder nurse.’

‘I wish I were not so unhandy,’ I said. My eyes felt hot, and my throat tight. ‘I am sure I have hurt you; unskilled as I am.’

‘Hush, my very dear. Of course you have not hurt me; you have the gentlest hand – indeed how can you not - you a scientist, and musician? But we shall talk of all of that later. Now I am truly feeling better today, and I desire that you shall see Lestrade, and then take some rest. If you will not leave me, then you may lie here with me to rest after the Inspector is gone, so I can wake you if there is aught I need. But go now, and speak to Lestrade. I have been thinking about this, and I was wrong. We must tell him what has occurred: such an attack cannot go unrecognised.’

‘And I have been thinking I was too hasty, and, and you were right. I – I do not – Watson, you were taken to – to a house of ill-repute to be – to be made the subject of – what if Lestrade thinks – once the idea is implanted . . .’

‘That is exactly why we must counter it, and not allow such practices to go unpunished. Leave me for a little, Holmes, and speak to our good Lestrade. And just pass this cloth over your face, and the comb through your hair: you must take care of yourself too, or we shall have you on the sick list before long.’ He handed me the lavender-steeped cloth, unfolding and refolding it to a fresh surface and I wiped it over my face. ‘There, that is better. We must both shave today: although I am in worse case than you. Go into the drawing room now, and leave the door open.’

I had no choice but to comply, for Mrs Hudson and the Inspector were at the drawing room door, and I had to submit to receiving them and answering Lestrade’s enquiries after Watson before we sat down to eat. Once the food was on my plate, my appetite returned, and since he was also sharp-set, we ate in silence for few minutes.

‘That is better, Holmes: you needed food. Lestrade, good morning, Pray forgive me for receiving you in such a state, but as you can see, I have been unwell, confined to bed. Nay, more - Holmes forbade me to leave my bed.’

‘Watson, what are you doing?’ I cast my knife and fork aside and hurried to support him where he stood in his dressing gown, leaning against the door jamb, and blinking in the brighter light. ‘You are not meant to be standing up!’

‘I am sorry to see you so unwell, Dr Watson.’ Lestrade rose and came to take his other arm – most officiously I thought. ‘Allow us to help you to the sofa, and I beg you will not mention it: I am happy to see you in any state, for we have all been worried about you at the Yard. I understood from Mr Holmes, that you had been injured but not how or in what situation.’

‘Thank you.’ Watson smiled ruefully as between us we piloted him to the sofa and landed him there. ‘I am less steady than I thought, it seems. The fact of the matter is, Lestrade, that it has been a bad business, and we have not had chance to speak of it to you yet, but I am afraid I must. The tale runs thus: I was decoyed to a house on pretext of visiting a woman in a cross-birth – of course, whoever planned this knew that I would come. But when I arrived at the supposed place, there was something odd – no women, no sound of children, no female voices, no midwife that I could see, and, I do not know how it was but I sensed the trap, and turned to retreat. I was felled from behind,’ he passed a hand over the back of his head, wincing, ‘and taken to a house where I was to be put in a compromising situation and blackmailed . . .’

‘Blackmailed!’ Lestrade frowned. ‘That old trick? A woman?’

Watson shook his head, then winced again. ‘A man, Lestrade. It was one of those houses where men go to consort with other men.’

‘A man. Of course.’ Lestrade looked at Watson, and then at me, his gaze coolly assessing. ‘Of course. It was aimed at more than Dr Watson: well, I am not surprised. If you could be made the subject of the common bounce, then Mr Holmes might be – implicated, let us say, since you share rooms.’

‘Not surprised?’ I could barely get the words out.

‘Of course I am not: you have offended some powerful criminals over the years I have known you, Mr Holmes. Your evidence has put many a miscreant in gaol, and Dr Watson’s too, especially in those cases where there has been medical evidence of assault needed. I have been – not expecting – but aware that at some time an attempt might be made upon either of you: upon your lives, certainly.’ He smiled at me. ‘And if not upon your lives, then your reputations. You should not reckon me so little your friend, Mr Holmes: you have been good to me and to my family, and so has Dr Watson. I am not ungrateful.’

‘You – you expected something like this?’

He did not answer me directly, but looked down, and then away through the window, before speaking. ‘Before we address that issue, I wish to - perhaps we could take a little detour, if you will allow me. You and I have spoken, Mr Holmes, about Mr Worth. You investigated him under his alias in Antwerp, did you not?’

‘I did, and we have, Lestrade. You think it was he?’

‘No, no, not he. It does not bear his stamp: you know, and I know – indeed Pinkertons and the Sûreté know - that what Mr Worth is interested in above all is the theft of diamonds. Indeed half the jewel robberies in the country – the Paris fraud you yourself investigated not long ago – can be traced almost to him before the arrow stops short: all point to him, but we cannot make them hit their mark. And generally he is, most strangely, averse to violence, unless it is to punish those of his subordinates who have failed him. He likes burglary, he likes theft, but he prefers them to be without the inconvenience that would attend the disposing of dead bodies. He himself would not, I think, order violence to be executed against you. But there are other – criminal activities loosely linked to him that are on the increase.’

‘Blackmail. As we have been discovering.’

‘Indeed. Now just this week – in fact it is what I have been wanting to speak to you about, and you must forgive me for being so importunate -  I am finding that there is a gentleman, well known about town, whom one would never suspect involved in blackmail – there was a young man shot himself, recently: not in my division, so I had not the investigating of it, but in the note he left, he spoke of one Charles Augustus Milverton as the cause of his death. As the blackmailer. Have you heard of the man?’

‘I had not, until recently. But Watson has. Let me just fetch him a glass of water and a biscuit, Lestrade, and then he shall tell you on his own account.’

I gave Watson his water, and settled a blanket over his legs, enquiring whether he wanted the fire building up, for although it was summer a slow, weeping rain had been falling all day, and I thought the house struck chill. He thanked me with a smile and a shake of the head before recounting young Holder’s – he of the Beryl Coronet affair – blackmailing letter, and how he had owned to an indiscretion that he had been lured into by a plausible young man . . . and of Colonel Moran’s part in the affair.’

‘Colonel Moran!’ Lestrade stiffened like a hunting dog on a scent. ‘The man I spoke of  - he who killed himself - had been gambling with a Colonel Moran. Then a house in which he was a guest recently had been robbed -  first money went missing, and a housemaid was turned away on suspicion of theft. Then after he had left, there was a burglary – one we are convinced was Worth’s doing. The jewels belonging to the mistress of the house, this young man’s aunt, were taken, and he, shortly after, had paid off part of his debt to Moran. Somehow Milverton had got wind of the affair, and was blackmailing him, claiming evidence that he had been implicated in both thefts. Seeing no way out of his dilemma, he took what he saw to be the only option, and blew his brains out.’

‘Milverton had got wind of it,’ I said, looking at Watson. ‘Or had been told. And who better to tell him of that young man, Watson, than Moran, who had entrapped him in those debts in the first place. Moran it was who promised to settle with Milverton, if Holder would do him ‘a little service,’ do you recall? We have not seen those two together, but we have seen Worth and Moran together. It was at the opera with the respectable Professor Moriarty, as I recall: now there is a man who had better watch the company he keeps, for it is said truly that evil communications corrupt good manners.’

‘Moran.’ Watson turned to Lestrade. ‘Lestrade, we have not informed you of the affair of this coronet, because Mr Holder the respectable banker would not have it: his niece, the wretched girl who stole the thing in the first place is languishing, no doubt, somewhere on the continent having become Moran’s mistress, and Holder did not want his family blown upon. All was settled by Holmes here. But Moran was implicated: it was he who lured Holder’s niece to steal the coronet in the first place, and Holmes negotiated – paid, in fact - for the return of its broken piece, since Holder would not go to you - ’

He paused, and I held the water to his lips, bidding him drink. ‘No,’ he went on, after thanking me with a look. ‘Moran does not love you, Holmes, as I said when we discussed it after the event. He does not love me either, Lestrade, for I crossed him in India, and we were, if not sworn enemies then, at least not friends, and are something more than not friends now. It may well be that he is involved in this – attempt on me: it is similar to what was done to young Holder.’ He smiled. ‘It is almost a pity, Holmes, that we did not allow the affair to ripen: had we done so, and had my blackmailing letter come from Mr Milverton, we could have had another, and very powerful link in our chain of evidence.’

‘You make my head spin,’ complained Lestrade. ‘Take me with you, gentlemen, I beg you: I cannot follow without assistance.’

‘Moran was involved in the theft of jewellery – it was paste jewellery, but never mind that for the moment, Lestrade, we shall come to it later. Moran seduced the girl into handing over the jewels she stole for him, and lured the boy into his power by playing cards with him; this is his common modus operandi, and has been since he was in India, is that not so, Watson? Milverton blackmailed the boy, having got wind of his gambling debts – to Moran -  and also on the strength of some compromising material that placed him in a molly house – to which Moran took, and in which he left him. Oh, you are black at heart, Colonel, you are black at heart. Moran left, as we thought, for the continent, with the price of the three gems he broke from the coronet, and the poor girl who stole them.’

‘Then I am told of the suicide,’ interjected Lestrade, ‘of a young man who games with Moran, and incurs debts to him. He stays in a house, money is stolen, and later there is a robbery there – of jewels; a ruby and diamond parure, Mr Holmes, which we have not yet traced, and, I fear, are not like to, since nothing is easier than to re-set the stones and sell them on - ’

‘Which would be much easier.’ I told him, ‘if you were able to take them to a jeweller already a little on the shady side, one not as honest as our friend Wernher, but one who, for example, undercuts the market in gems he appears to be able to obtain for far less cost than other dealers in these things.’

‘A jeweller such as Wynert and company, whom you investigated in Antwerp,’ put in Watson. ‘Behind which company is the figure of Worth.’

‘Indeed, my dear fellow, indeed. Are you with us, Lestrade?’

‘I believe I am now, so let me continue: the young man  who died – as your Mr Holder did not, being rescued by your good selves - stays in a house in which there is later a robbery. After that the young man pays off part, but not all of his debts to Colonel Moran, and doubtless, poor wretch, thinks he has argued for more time to obtain money to pay the rest of them - ’

‘ – or perhaps is given more time to stay at another house where the owner might have gems worth stealing, Lestrade - ’

‘ - good heavens, Mr Holmes, good heavens! It is beyond anything -  but is arrested in his possibly criminal course – oh – or perhaps he would not allow himself to be made use of in that way, as a spy and informer -  by a blackmailing letter from our Mr Milverton, who pops up like a bad penny again - ’

‘And so he shoots himself in despair, seeing no way out, poor young wretch.’ Watson’s tone was soft and sad. ‘There was more than one young man in India who killed himself because of his gambling debts to Moran.’

‘The Colonel seems fortunate at cards,’ Lestrade observed wryly.

‘He is an accomplished card-sharp, none better.’

‘But in all of this,’ I concluded, ‘there seems to be direction and intent: malice aforethought conspiring to harm the unwary and benefit others. Moran and Milverton, I think we may safely say, are linked; they appear twice together now, Moran as the gambler who lures young men into his trap that he may blackmail them and Milverton as the blackmailer. Do they share the proceeds, I wonder?  Yes indeed – and although, Watson, I would never wish one I hold so dear to come into the grasp of a blackmailer, it is, as you say, a pity that we were not able to determine whether the attempt to blackmail you would have come from Milverton. It must be Moran who set the trap for you, for did not -  our informant - speak of a military man, one accustomed to giving orders as one of his principals in your affair?

‘He did. And there were three, were there not?’

Indeed, three, he said, who spoke together. Now Moran and Milverton we can place together already. And Moran and Worth we have seen meeting together, if not acting together: moreover the theme of the jewel thefts links them. As good William of Occam said, _entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatum_ : let cause not multiply more than is needful. Let us posit, then, three principals: one gambler, to trap the unwary, one blackmailer to levy extortion by threatening to expose the debt, both gambler and blackmailer to incite to crime to pay both the gambling debt, and the blackmail, and one jewel thief to dispose of the proceeds. It fits, by heaven, only see how it fits! Are we then looking at a conspiracy, Lestrade? At these criminals confederated, and acting together?

Lestrade was silent for a few moments, then ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I believe we are. And, gentlemen, given what you have told me, I believe it was these criminals who may have arranged Dr Watson's abduction. It fits, as you said yourself, Mr Holmes. It fits.’

*****

‘Holmes, what,’ said Watson to me as he entered our sanctum, some weeks after the attempt upon him. He had kept to the house for a week, for it took time for his headaches and nausea to resolve but was now hale and hearty again – although he went nowhere alone without advising me and with one of our street boys to watch him, for we did not know when an attempt might come again. ‘Holmes, what is that appalling stench? I have known sweeter air in charnel houses.’

‘I am engaged upon obtaining pure chlorine, by means of a process called electrolysis. As you know, I received recently some correspondence from my chemical colleague, Charles Friedel, at the Sorbonne. An associate of his, one Henri Moissan, has just succeeded in obtaining a pure fluorine gas by the process, and since it is impossible to do that here – I have not the means of cooling the system to minus fifty degrees, and I have no platinum electrodes – I thought to try the process to produce another of the so-called halogen, or salt-producing gases.’

‘But are they not poisonous? I believe I read somewhere that to inhale them was deleterious to health? Men have died, have they not, in attempting to obtain this fluorine?’

‘Indeed they are, Watson, and indeed they have, but it really does not signify at the moment. Attend to me: I shall explain! So I have this tank here, full of a solution of sodium chloride, which is simply common salt which I procured from Mrs Hudson, in a saturated solution, and I have obtained a Leclanché cell to provide me with electrical energy – it is a most ingenious process in itself, to make these – and I must experiment on this also, as they are useful in telegraphy and signalling - perhaps Lestrade might like to introduce their use at the Yard – and in any case, by means of what one calls electrodes leading from the electrical cell into the tank, I am able to obtain an effusion of hydrogen  - here, let me show you: if I just light this splint and introduce to this  - ’

‘Ah - yes. I see, that was – interesting – and perhaps it would be as well to remember next time that it appears to produce quite a flame. Here, hold this wet handkerchief to your burnt hand, my dear fellow, that is right -  and so this greenish vapour would be the chlorine you have obtained? I understand the halogens to be bad for the lungs, and indeed, it catches strongly at the back of the throat, do you not find: let us open the window, my dear, before we are asphyxiated entirely. By the way, is that the barrel of my silver pen you have used? I am glad it was of use to you, but I do not think it will sit well upon my pen any longer, alas.’

‘But what I do not understand is how to obtain a useful form of the two gases, Watson.’ I allowed him to lead me to the sofa. ‘Why have you removed my electrical cell? Yes, I am sorry about your pen, but I can always buy you a new one. I could not lay my hand on two steel knives in my haste to begin: you see the other one which forms an electrode is eroding quite away, but your pen is more resistant. Do not remove it my dear fellow, for I have not finished. If it were possible to oppose a membrane between the two wires, so that one might introduce the saturated brine at one end of the tank, and then obtain both chlorine and hydrogen gas and a useful solution of caustic soda, into the bargain  - now that would be excellent! Imagine how convenient it would be, my dear Watson: I should be able to obtain chemicals I need for my own work by simply applying electricity to saline. As it is, a portion of the chlorine remains mixed with the salt solution, forming a hypochlorite, or bleaching agent, which I do not want at all: I am not a laundress, to have need of it. Although I suppose it might be made use of in the household, so as not to waste the product - ’

‘Indeed,’ Watson sat next to me, and took my hand. ‘I see, in fact, that you have bleached that dressing gown, which now has a large and leprous blotch on it near the cuff. May I have your other hand?  No, not the burned one, the left hand. Thanks, my dear fellow. This solution you have obtained is strongly alkaline: did not you notice that your wrist was reddened where the liquid splashed? Wait while I fetch water now, we must bathe this repeatedly, until it no longer feels slick – that is the action of the alkali on your skin, Holmes – and then we shall have a little discussion.’

He rang the bell for Mrs Hudson, fetched water and bathed my hand, all the time with the gravest expression on his face, one for which I could not account at all. When Mrs Hudson came, he ordered tea for us, and then continued to bathe my hand. His touch was soothing. I focused carefully on it, quantifying the pressure of his touch, estimating the temperature of his skin, observing the branching of the veins in his wrist, and began to feel a little calmer as the heated excitement of my earlier activities receded.

‘Holmes,’ he said, after we had been sitting together an hour or so. He had bound my hand loosely, promising to bathe it again for me later, and his touch had lulled me into such drowsy content that I was happy to rest against him. ‘How long have you been engaged upon this experiment?’

‘Since you went out this morning, why do you ask?’

‘Well -  it is now five in the afternoon, old fellow, and you are still in your nightshirt and dressing gown. I wondered if you were unwell.’

‘Oh, I took a little cocaine as usual this morning, to inspire my mind and clarify the thought processes, and then immediately began my work. I became engrossed in it, I suppose. It is of no matter: I had not to go out today, and there is no case to occupy my mind. Mrs Hudson has not been up here, or if she has I have not given it any mind. I am quite decent enough, Watson, for a man at his work in his own home.’

‘She brought you a luncheon at noon, but I see you ignored it, as it is still there on the table. When I returned home, she expressed herself as unwilling to enter the room again until your experiment was finished, my dear Holmes, or she would have taken the food away, and you, apparently, none the wiser. Did you inject your cocaine, can you tell me, or did you swallow the solution?’

‘I do not take cocaine in solution any more, Watson: it is not as quick-acting. I prefer to inject, as you know, but it is only a seven per cent solution, and I have only taken it twice today. I found myself flagging a little, and needed the stimulus it provided.’

‘Ah, it is seven percent now that you take? And twice today, you say?’

‘Indeed. But you need not be uneasy, Watson, we have it on the best authority that it is not like morphine, and indeed, it is so transcendentally stimulating to the brain. The dullness one experiences with morphine is completely absent. It is as if my thought process is magnified ten times with the drug: you cannot imagine how much faster my mind works under its thrall.’

‘I hope it is not a thrall, my dear Holmes,’ Watson went to the door and took the tea tray from Mrs Hudson, asking her to send Janey up with soup and sandwiches so that we might have a light meal before our later dinner. ‘I do hope it is not a thrall.’

‘Of course it is not a thrall.’ I shook my head, as he offered me a sandwich. ‘That is not what I meant at all: it is not slavery, but a willing partnership. I am not hungry, Watson, pray do not press me to eat. Indeed, my stomach is somewhat disordered; I have not had any appetite at all today, and feel quite unaccountably nauseous.’

‘A little beef tea, then?’ He handed me a cup, and to please him I took it and sipped. ‘That is good, Holmes; take the whole cup if you please. I know you in these fits; you will take nothing now, and wake ravenous and, my dear, exceedingly bad-tempered into the bargain, in the morning if you do not eat now.’

I drank the soup to please him, for he smiled so kindly on me I could do naught else. We spent the rest of the evening together, he having sought, and obtained my permission to take my experiment down to the back yard. After our small meal, I let him order me as he would, for a dark lethargy increased upon me, and the world began to seem very dim and far away. I played to him in the evening, after a dinner I could not eat, and we read a little, but somehow I did not feel apt for music, and the words were without savour. When we parted for the night it was with an embrace – it was always with an embrace now, either he in my arms or I in his. He rested his brow against mine for a moment as we stood there and suddenly I saw that he was more sorrowful than I.

‘John,’ I said to him. ‘John, what is it?’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I think it is – well, it may be nothing. I do not know, quite, what it is. An – an – apprehension, perhaps? Holmes, would you do something for me?’

‘Of course. Anything.’

‘I understand that you enjoy the way your mind works when you take cocaine. I am a dull man, compared to you, but even I can appreciate the thrill, the lust for knowledge that can seize and transport a man: when I myself have tracked the disease to its hiding place in the body, when I prepare my armament of drugs and instruments and put on my armour of knowledge -  when I fight the evil and overcome it, and see my patient – my former patient -  walk whole and sound into the sun, do you not think that I then feel that thrill pervading my veins? I am uplifted: I am as a God . . . until the next time, of course. So I do understand what it is to soar. But for myself, I never soar without a corresponding fall: when I am waiting for the next patient, when I remember how few the victories are, how mighty the enemy, how unending and bloody the battle.’

‘You are not a dull man. And I do understand what you feel. But are you saying that you see the same in me?’ I bent to tuck my head onto his shoulder, feeling a ridiculous urge to weep. ‘The fall?’

‘This morning you were elated, excited – you worked without stopping for hours, without even dressing yourself, so great was your desire to proceed with the thing that was occupying your mind to the exclusion of all else. This afternoon, you seemed – well, as if you had had what I describe – for myself - as a fall. You have suffered from some low moods of late, lower than usual. I believe – I begin to believe -  that despite what we have heard of this drug, the mental clarity you prize so greatly with it is succeeded by a corresponding fall in mood. A depression, as it were.’

 _That is not why I am depressed,_ I wanted to tell him. _That is not why I am depressed. It is because I want to allow myself to desire you as much as I love you. I want to share your bed every night, not only on the rare occasions we allow ourselves, when illness and misfortune drive us to lie together for a little comfort. I want to lie with you skin to skin, naked and bold, your flesh against mine, your lips claiming mine, your hand on me to arouse and possess me. I am in love with you, John. I desire you as man desires woman, as woman desires man. I am in lust with you, John, I want to take and be taken, to hear you call my name in your extremity as I tease your pleasure from you, to come to my own glory with your name on my kissed and sated mouth. And I cannot. I can not. Even if you were, by some wondrous and unguessed-at chance, willing, we must not._

‘Perhaps,’ I said to him. ‘But I hope it is not so, Watson. I should be very sorry if it is so. And, John . . .’

‘Would you discontinue the drug for a little while, Sherlock, do you think? It would be – it might be a useful experiment, to see if there is a corresponding diminution of the low mood?’

‘If you want,’ I said. The world seemed very dreary to me then. ‘If you want, I – I suppose I might try it.’

‘Thank you, my dear.’ He lifted a hand, and drew it gently down my cheek. I had shed some few tears, it seemed, although I had hardly realised it. ‘Sherlock?’

‘It is nothing. Nothing,’ I said. ‘You are right, my mood is low today. I shall try discontinuing the use of cocaine for a while.’ I released him and turned to go, but he stopped me, his hand on my arm.

‘Is there – is there anything – anything I can offer to, to solace you, my dear?’ His voice was so gentle. He was always so gentle with me. ‘I – I hate to see you so low.’

‘No.’ I tried to smile at him, but felt myself falter. I wanted to lie in his arms that night, but I could not, not after having profaned his kindness with such lecherous thoughts as mine had been in that moment he had held me. ‘No, it is no matter. I shall be better in the morning. Go to bed, John, do not fret over me.’

He stepped back. ‘Very well, my dear fellow. You – you will call me, at need?’

‘I will. Could we walk tomorrow, John? Arm in arm, as we were wont to do. It feels – as if we have not for a while.’

‘Of course, my dear. I am here to be of use, you know.’

I thanked him and left. Wild dreams were mine that night: even that monster Edward Hyde, whose hidden and hinted-at desires I believed to be mine, dreamed not so strangely. In imagination, I pursued all my need, was myself pursued with an equal heat and ardour: the height of felicity was mine. Was ours. He spent himself in my arms, his lips shaping my name. I rutted against him in a fury of lust and passion until I too was spent. I woke at dawn, his name on my lips -  and my flesh had not stirred, for it followed not in actuality my wild imaginings. So much the cocaine did, and for so much I was grateful. But the morning was grey, and as I set aside my syringe in obedience to his wishes, my mind was greyer.

*****

‘Osborn has been sentenced to penal servitude for life.’ Lestrade told us. He had dropped by one evening, as he did from time to time, and Mrs Hudson and Janey, after providing us with a cold supper, had taken a cab at Watson’s instigation to his house, to sit and enjoy a comfortable evening with his wife while we men kept bachelor hall together.

‘A dear forty pounds then.’ Watson sifted powdered sugar into the punch bowl, stirred, added more ice, dipped a spoon, and tasted. ‘A thought too much lemon, perhaps. Although you do not like it too sweet, do you, Lestrade?’ He took up the ladle, and filled three glasses with the iced mixture. ‘There, what do you think?’

‘Excellent,’ Lestrade drained his glass and held it out to be filled again. ‘You are the best of fellows, Dr Watson, thank you. I thought I should never be done with the day to get here. It has been interesting, has it not, to piece together our tale of criminality with these robberies? Mr Holmes? Do you not think so?’

‘Indeed.’

A duller man even than Lestrade would have understood that I did not wish to converse just then, and Lestrade, being by no means dull, had the courtesy not to press me. We had that day seen a young man, John Osborn – just seventeen, younger even than Andrew Grant - sent to penal servitude for life for demanding money with menaces from a gentleman he had encountered in the street – the same old story: he had accosted a man, William Marling, asked for a drink and been taken up to his rooms in Jermyn Street. Upon leaving, not satisfied with the three guineas offered him, he had demanded more, insisting on ten, and taking a gold watch and chain worth forty as a pledge, threatening to accuse Marling of an abominable crime unless given the money on the morrow. Marling had promised to meet him, and had done so with a policemen, who arrested Osborn for extortion.

‘Holmes, my dear – fellow - will you take a little punch?’

‘I thank you, Watson, but no, I am not thirsty.’

‘You have drunk very little today and the weather is excessively hot: come now, old chap, a glass of water, and a sip of punch. To please me.’

‘If I must.’

The water was agreeable to my parched throat, and once started, I drained the glass. We were in the dog-days, and the weather had been very hot: I sat in my shirt sleeves and near the window, to catch what breeze might be found. The punch I set aside: I did not want to drink alcohol. Watson and Lestrade might be as convivial as they chose, but I was not for company that evening.

I could not get out of my head the events of the trial. Young Osborn had accosted Marling - a wealthy young fool but five years older than he - asking for a drink. They could have drunk in any convenient hostelry rather than adjourn to those rooms: it appeared clear to me why they had done so – and why on turning the boy away afterwards he had parted with first a sovereign, and then two guineas more. It was Osborn’s greed that had led Marling to inform upon him to the police, saying that he had been blackmailed. The judge had been severe. He had been severe upon Marling too, commenting what a curious thing - and a foolish thing – it was of him to do, taking a chance-met lad from the street into his rooms ‘for a drink’. He was no fool, Lord Justice Day; he well knew what had transpired in those rooms in Jermyn Street. But he had been more severe upon Osborn, for Osborn was accustomed to doing this sort of thing, was, in fact, well known to the police for it. The common bounce was his livelihood, just as it was for Andrew Grant, and so they had taken the opportunity to put a stop to his games. I had little sympathy for a blackmailer: had it not been for the grace of God and Jack Saul, my Watson would have found himself in as dire a case, some trumped up story concocted to explain his presence in Cleveland Street, and evidence, perhaps, planted. His would have been the name blown upon, his the reputation ruined, his the shame and disgrace. And he would not have appeared so innocent: Grant and Coulton would have seen to that. But yet, Osborn was only seventeen – seventeen, and now doomed to suffer for life . . . His crimes were black, the punishment black, the fact that there was such a crime, such a punishment for a man’s nature, a sanction for his need, those needs perverted into crime and the fulfilling of the needs itself considered to be perverse: all was black, black, black . . .

‘I’ll be taking my leave, Dr Watson, and I thank you for the rum punch: it was a pleasant relief after our labours.’ I felt, rather than saw, Lestrade glance at me. ‘Best not to disturb Mr Holmes, I think: he is lost somewhere in that great mind of his. Well, Doctor, I shall doubtless see you at the Yard tomorrow. If you just knock on my door, I shall have the papers you want ready.’

‘The information on Toussaint and Coombes? Many thanks, Lestrade, I shall be most grateful. Mr Holmes and I will incorporate your papers into our files. Will you see yourself downstairs?’

‘I will. Good evening to you, Doctor, and my thanks for a most pleasant hour or two. We have done well: we have scotched this Scottish snake finely that sought to bite you, I think, and there should be no more trouble. And we have more information to add to our collection, more knowledge now of this confederacy of crime.’

‘Good night then.’ The door closed.

I reflected. Dorato Toussaint had been sentenced on March 24th for robbing a diamond merchant, Jules Tabak of Belgrave Street of one thousand four hundred pounds worth of diamonds. He and another man had called at the jeweller’s showroom at Belgrave street, looked at diamonds and selected some. The following day they had sent for more, and when Tabak took them to the rencontre, he had been assaulted by Toussaint and the diamonds stolen. Fortunately the wounded merchant had been able to raise the alarm, the thieves were pursued by a determined female servant who called upon the constables as she ran, and Tabak, once caught, was taken to prison. His imperfect articulation there had been ascribed to his being a foreigner - not to his having put many of the diamonds in his mouth. He transferred them thence privily to a glove, which he deposited into a bucket of water in the corridor of the police station, whence they had later been retrieved. It was, in all cases a bungled affair, and I had no doubt that Mr Adam Worth was even now seething at it, for the method that had worked so successfully on those other robberies that bore his stamp had turned into a thing of farce in the hands of the incompetent Toussaint. (From what I had divined of Worth already, it appeared to me that he would have doubled the award of the little serving-girl, Sarah Utting. The judge had awarded her a miserable ten shillings for her pluck – I could see Worth offering her more, if for no other reason than that he was said to admire a spirited – although in this case minuscule, for we had seen the girl and she was a typical example of the London scullery-maid –  a spirited opponent, and also to spite his incompetent operative. Coombes’ was a simpler theft: caretaker at Messrs Jones and Co of St Paul’s Churchyard, he had disabled the springs of the alarm bell system before removing a thousand pounds worth of jewellery from the place and spinning some fantasy of an intruder. He also had been unsuccessful, and was even now in prison. Worth, I thought, would be -

‘Holmes?’ Watson was kneeling in front of me, and had taken both my hands in his own capable ones. ‘My dear fellow, speak to me. Is it very bad, my dear?’

‘I am in a pit.’ I told him, after a pause during which I sought to understand his words. ‘I am in a black, deep pit, and I cannot get out, John.’

‘Oh my dear, my dear. I am so sorry. Would that we had never bought the damn stuff. But it was so well recommended. I had such trust, such faith.’

There was a salt drop on his cheek: I traced its progress with a wondering eye. Then he bowed his head to our clasped hands. ‘Sherlock, I did not know. I swear to you, I did not know. But Freud’s letter explains it all. What he says – I cannot fault the man for beginning with a drug that seemed to promise so fair, but when he first discerned a – a dependence in himself, then he should have had a care to test it, to try it, before recommending it to all and sundry.’

I released one hand from his, and brought it up to stroke his hair. ‘It is not so very bad, John. The morphine was worse, physically. And it was not just Freud who recommended it: so many saw it as a wonder drug, with no ill effects. Freud was misled by the initial success he had. He meant well with his friend Fleischl, he simply did not want the man to suffer any more, and believed that taking the cocaine would cure his morphine addiction, which, for a while, it did.’

‘Fleischl! That poor, wretched fellow is injecting himself four and five times a day: he took it to stop the torment of pain he was in, and now he is doubly in pain, from want of the drug, and from that accursed amputation site. There is nothing worse than nerve pain; it is an unending torture: God pity the poor man, for life and his body will not do so. Thank God, Holmes - ’ I felt him shiver. ‘Thank God you never came to that, to take it to that degree. I am glad I wrote, questioning, after our last experience, that we might be advised of its dangers now, before too long had passed. Although I much censure Freud: he should have been swifter to retract his claims that it is a harmless panacea, thus might much evil have been averted. And yet - oh, I am much to blame for this, so much to blame. I thought I was helping you – I, a doctor, sworn to do no harm. I thought it a simple herb, like to our valerian and chamomilla, and the dill that we give to infants to relieve their colics. I thought to give you a little relief from the darkness, and see, I have brought it down upon you tenfold. Forgive me, my dear friend. Forgive me the wrong I have done to you.’

‘What is this remorse?’ I saw a sob shake him, and it pulled me out of my stupor of misery. ‘If you introduced me to the drug, it is I that experimented, and went further, I that increased my dose and moved from taking it as a draught to injecting once more. It is I who am flawed. I am like a drunkard, who cannot take drink moderately but must swill and tope his way into swinish oblivion. It is I – my character, my weakness. My depravity.’

‘There is no depravity in you.’ He looked up then, his gaze fierce. There is no depravity in you: you have a clean soul, a pure soul, and it is beautiful. All about you is beautiful, Sherlock, your mind, your soul. You.’

I touched his wet cheek. ‘I am nothing beautiful. And I am not worth your tears, John. You did nothing wrong. You were deceived, as were Freud, and Aschenbach, and Koller, and all who thought they had found a panacea. Doctors all, eager to relieve pain, they rejoiced that they had found an answer to the ills that plague men, and so they let down their guards, not understanding that there was a serpent in their new-found paradise. Good men all, as are you, and good men deceived by very compassion and pity for their sick fellows.’

‘I do not trust myself to help you now. Freud does not trust himself to help Fleischl: he has admitted it. The matter is out of his hands, he says. And I – I must see you suffer and know that I have caused it, this bitter sadness in the aftermath.’

‘Anhedonia. The absence of joy. I am in a pit, it is true, John, and one where no joy is to be had, but the want of the drug is not the only reason. It is man’s inhumanity to man that grieves me beyond endurance. Your experience, and this wretched Marling’s with Osborn, and poor Jack – oh, do not tell me he would in all cases have desisted from aiding Grant. A man must eat, after all, and he is not so young. It is you yourself that stayed him - your kindness that protected you. My sorrow is not only for myself, it is not only the lack of the drug that sinks me so deep. It is the world. It is _weltschmertz:_ woe, woe, world sorrow. The world is all wrong nowadays, it would seem.’

‘No.’ He rose, and pulled me by the hand. ‘We must not allow ourselves to think so. There is hope. There is always hope. Come here to me, Sherlock. It is not all wrong. There is kindness still: the small kindnesses, small goodnesses – the many humble people who go about doing good. There are those honest folk we know in our daily lives: only witness Mrs Hudson’s patience and her generosity, Lestrade’s steadfast fidelity to his duty, the friendships between our odd little families, your kindness to me. Jack, poor fellow, may have been tempted, but he did not fall, and I do not believe he would have done, for his better nature would have held out, would have triumphed in the end.’ He seated us on the sofa, his hand still in mine. ‘Will you sit close, my dear? If you can still trust me, I who have wounded you, albeit unwilling, unwitting, unconscious of the scathe? Will you let me comfort you?’

‘There is no comfort where you are not, John. Your wounding me was, as you say, unconsciously done, and you have, as you always will have, my full and free forgiveness. Let there be no talk of wrong between us; we are but two friends, who err, as is only human, and forgive each other as we hope for forgiveness. Hold me now, my only comfort.’ We lay together. Our sofa was narrow, but I could compress myself into its small space well enough. ‘There, now I am solaced, now my pain is eased. And you are right; there are many faithful kindnesses done every day, and I do not see it. Why can I not see it?’

‘It is your nature to feel the evils of life thus – deeply and painfully.’ He stroked my cheek, kissed my brow as I lay close clasped to his breast. ‘And because you do what you do, then needs must you come too much into contact with that which must make you feel. You enquire into deep and painful matters: hence there is pain. I remind you of the kindness in the world to counterbalance what you see; looking always on the dark side, my dearest Sherlock, your eyes dazzle in the light.’

‘Yes.’ I sighed then, for the bonds that had held my mind in an iron grip had loosened a little. ‘There is light. There is you. And you must be kinder to yourself too, not only see yourself so darkly. You did not intend to hurt me: you acted in good faith with the cocaine. And, John, you suggested we should taper the drug off: it was I who insisted on withdrawing it completely. I had not expected the reaction to be so severe, but now it is so, I shall not go back. Only be with me through it.’

‘Yes,’ He clasped me closer. ‘I will be with you. Only do not – do not send me away.’

‘I do not wish to.’ I told him. ‘I shall never wish to.’

We must have slept then. I woke many hours later with a start, grey dawn in the sky spilling cold through the half-drawn curtains. Watson and I were covered snugly with the blue woollen afghan, which we had certainly not drawn over us ourselves as we lay there, and from the look of the fire, banked and purring to itself in the grate, it had been made up by a careful hand since we had slept. I roused him, and we stumbled, sleepy and aching with long lying in our cramped position, to our beds. But before we went our separate ways, Watson folded and smoothed the afghan, and pointed at the fire. ‘Small kindnesses,’ he said, softly. ‘Do you not think so, Holmes?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I could not repress my love for him as I met his eye, and wondered if he saw it. Certainly his gaze met mine with a quiet trust and affection that was wholly beautiful. ‘You are right, Watson. Small kindnesses, but they weigh heavy in the scale against evil. You are right, it is not all dark.’

*****

The summer wore wearily on into a September distinguished chiefly by its sudden rises and falls in temperature, and a succession of gales bringing thunder as well as rain with them. Although Watson found the changeable weather trying for his leg, he accompanied me faithfully on our rambles. I gloried in the wind, and liked nothing better than to walk to Primrose Hill where I let the storm buffet me until my ears were ringing with its savage scream.

The weather matched my clouded mood, for I craved my cocaine with an unspeakable, an evilly persistent yearning: thrice, four times, many times a day I was drawn to the case – that same hideous morocco case in which I had kept my morphine – to caress the smooth glass of the syringe, to press a tentative finger against the plunger, even, God help me, to take up the instrument and set the needle to my scarred arm. The loss of the drug was worse than the loss of my morphine: I had never craved its drowsy embrace, its lulling quietude as I did the fierce exaltation of _erythroxylon coca_. I had given over all supplies of the fiend to Watson: he was my gatekeeper, my shield, my comforter in all. We worked – I was never tired of working then: I ran my poor friend ragged with chase after chase, taking on all the cases that came my way, so that I should not fall into that dire lethargy that left me vulnerable. I panted for more excitement, the beast in me growling, and straining at the leash after food. I fed it with what scraps I could. But the weather’s buffeting and the cases we could summon up, could not serve to assuage it.

I was glad, after all, though, that we had done with cocaine, for it was during that summer men began first to turn against the drug, understanding how it poisoned mind and body alike -  and if we were not the first to eschew its use, we were certainly not the last. Watson showed me a paper in a medical journal: it was by one William Halsted, an American surgeon of some note, known also to the Viennese, with whom Halsted had studied and with whom Watson, after our trip to Vienna, still corresponded.

‘Meynert sent me this.’ he said, proffering the article. ‘Read, Holmes.’

I took up the paper. _‘“Neither indifferent as to which of many possibilities may best explain, nor yet at a loss as to comprehend, why surgeons have, and that so many, quite without discredit . . .”_ What is this, Watson? Even Cicero’s multiplicative clauses are easier to comprehend. Is the man out of his wits? _“ . . .could have exhibited scarcely any interest in what, as a local anaesthetic, had been supposed, if not declared by most so very sure to prove especially, to them, attractive . . .”_ good heavens, this is complete gibberish “ _. . .still, I do not think that this circumstance, or some sense of obligation to rescue fragmentary reputations for surgeons rather than belief that an opportunity existed for assisting others to an appreciable extent, induced me . . .”_ Ah, finally we come to a main verb: never was text harder to construe, and I am a Latinist of many years standing! “ _. . .several months ago to write upon the subject in hand the greater part of a somewhat comprehensible paper which poor health disinclined me to complete . . .”_ Oh God, Watson, was this . . .?’

‘It was written under the influence of cocaine. Halsted recognised the symptoms of an undue exaltation in himself when it became clear he had written an unreadable paper, declared himself too ill to work, and retreated to Vienna: I do not believe he met with Freud, but he met with Billroth, certainly, and his assistant Wölfler, whom I have also met. He was unable to shake off his need for the drug, returned to America in January of this year, and in April was taken to the Butler Sanatorium in Rhode Island for treatment for his addiction. He has been there ever since. You have escaped lightly, Holmes, for it may truly be said of Halsted, as Shakespeare says of Hamlet, “ _oh what a noble mind is here o’erthrown.”_ My stupidity could have brought you to this: I would never have forgiven myself.’

‘Watson, when I performed the electrolysis experiment - ’

‘ – I recognised an incoherence in you, yes. It was what gave me first to wonder, for you seemed – outside yourself in a way I had not seen before, and you had injured yourself without realising it, which is always a cause for concern. I communicated therefore, with Freud, with what result you know.’

‘I am glad of it. We have done the right thing, my dear Watson, never doubt it.’

‘But you still crave it, do you not, Holmes?’

‘I do,’ I admitted to him. ‘I – I fear that I may for quite some time.’

‘Then perhaps it is well that we remained in town this summer, to work, so your mind does not stagnate.’

‘Yes, if only there were cases of note. I weary, I confess, of the small and mundane, nor can I find much to do in these constant riots in Belfast: there is work there, to be sure, but I have no desire to become a government workhorse. I need more, Watson. I need more.’

Matters stood thus for some weeks, I chafing and fretting at my enforced abstinence from cocaine, and Watson, poor dear fellow, bearing as patiently with my sour temper and erratic moods as any loving nurse with beloved child. Then one Tuesday morning, Mrs Hudson showed two visitors of European fame into our humble rooms in Baker Street. The one, austere, high-nosed, eagle-eyed, and dominant, was none other than that illustrious Lord who had been twice Premier of Britain. The other, dark, clear-cut, and elegant, hardly yet of middle age, and endowed with every beauty of body and of mind, was a man I shall designate, for secrecy’s sake, the Right Honourable Trelawney Hope, Secretary for European Affairs, and the most rising statesman in the country. They sat side by side upon our paper-littered sofa, and it was easy to see from their worn and anxious faces that it was business of the most pressing importance which had brought them. The Premier’s thin, blue-veined hands were clasped tightly over the ivory head of his umbrella, and his gaunt, ascetic face looked gloomily from Watson to me. The European Secretary pulled nervously at his moustache and fidgeted with the seals of his watch-chain.

‘When I discovered my loss, Mr. Holmes, which was at eight o’clock this morning, I at once informed the Prime Minister. It was at his suggestion that we have both come to you.’

‘Have you informed the police?”

‘No, sir,” said the Prime Minister, with the quick, decisive manner for which he was famous. “We have not done so, nor is it possible that we should do so. To inform the police must, in the long run, mean to inform the public. This is what we particularly desire to avoid.’

‘And why, sir?’

‘Because the document in question is of such immense importance that its publication might very easily—I might almost say probably—lead to European complications of the utmost moment. It is not too much to say that peace or war may hang upon the issue. Unless its recovery can be attended with the utmost secrecy, then it may as well not be recovered at all, for all that is aimed at by those who have taken it is that its contents should be generally known.’

‘I understand. Now, Mr. Trelawney Hope, I should be much obliged if you would tell me exactly the circumstances under which this document disappeared.’

‘I should prefer – would it not be better, sir,’ he turned to the Prime Minister, ‘to speak only to - ’

‘You need not continue,’ I replied, as decisively as I knew how. ‘I will stir not a step in this affair without Doctor Watson: he is at all points to be trusted, and I must have him regarded equally with me. Really, Sir, distrust a man who has carried arms for his country, has shed his heart’s blood for his country, who labours for it even now, tireless in the relief of its citizens? Who among your colleagues has done as much? Who is better to be trusted?’

The Prime Minister nodded. ‘Continue, Hope,’ he commanded. ‘Mr Homes is correct. We must trust both or neither: I have - ’ a conscious glance passed between them, and I wondered – ‘I have it on good authority that it is acceptable.’

_(Mycroft, I thought: that must be my brother’s voice in the matter.)_

‘Then I shall continue. The story can be told in a very few words, Mr. Holmes. The letter—for it was a letter from a foreign potentate—was received six days ago. It was of such importance that I have never left it in my safe, but have taken it across each evening to my house in Whitehall Terrace, and kept it in my bedroom in a locked despatch-box. It was there last night. Of that I am certain. I actually opened the box while I was dressing for dinner and saw the document inside. This morning it was gone. The despatch-box stood beside the glass upon my dressing-table all night. I am a light sleeper, and so is my wife. We are both prepared to swear that no one could have entered the room during the night. And yet I repeat - the paper is gone.’

‘What time did you dine?’

‘Half-past seven.’

‘How long was it before you went to bed?’

‘My wife had gone to the theatre. I waited up for her. It was half-past eleven before we went to our room.’

‘Then for four hours the despatch-box had lain unguarded?’

‘No one is ever permitted to enter that room save the house-maid in the morning, and my valet, or my wife’s maid, during the rest of the day. They are both trusty servants who have been with us for some time. Besides, neither of them could possibly have known that there was anything more valuable than the ordinary departmental papers in my despatch-box.’

‘Who did know of the existence of that letter?’

‘No one in the house.’

‘Surely your wife knew?’

‘No, sir. I had said nothing to my wife until I missed the paper this morning.’

The Prime Minister nodded approvingly. ‘I have long known, Sir, how high is your sense of public duty,” said he. “I am convinced that in the case of a secret of this importance it would rise superior to the most intimate domestic ties.’

The European Secretary bowed.

‘You do me no more than justice, sir. Until this morning I have never breathed one word to my wife upon this matter.’

‘Could she have guessed?’

‘No, Mr. Holmes, she could not have guessed—nor could anyone have guessed.’

“Have you lost any documents before?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Who is there in England who did know of the existence of this letter?’

‘Each member of the Cabinet was informed of it yesterday, but the pledge of secrecy which attends every Cabinet meeting was increased by the solemn warning which was given by the Prime Minister. Good heavens, to think that within a few hours I should myself have lost it!’

His handsome face was distorted with a spasm of despair, and his hands tore at his hair. For a moment we caught a glimpse of the natural man, impulsive, ardent, keenly sensitive. The next the aristocratic mask was replaced, and the gentle voice had returned. ‘Besides the members of the Cabinet there are two, or possibly three, departmental officials who know of the letter. No one else in England, Mr. Holmes, I assure you.’

‘But abroad?’

‘I believe that no one abroad has seen it save the man who wrote it. I am well convinced that his Ministers—that the usual official channels have not been employed.’

I considered for some little time. It was clear to me that the matter in hand related to affairs in the Balkans, and, if I were to hazard a guess, would swear that the foreign potentate who had indited the letter was Alexander of Bulgaria, that unfortunate prince who, returning heralded with cries of joy to his principality in January of the present year, had been forced by a Russian plot to abdicate his throne in August, had regained it not eight days later with the help of his minister, Stambolov, and abdicated again a week after that, Alexander III, Czar of Russia, being so implacably hostile toward him for his liberal tendencies as to prevent his ruling with any sort of security.

If the prince had indeed written to the present government, requesting help, or informing against the Russian cause – for so he might, upon the very slender grounds of his being related to our own royal family by marriage – it would indeed cast the government into a ferment. Public opinion was strongly against Russia, and the prince was popular here.

It took some time for me to persuade the Prime Minister and Hope to confide fully in me with details of the case, but I would not continue without knowing. Their attempt to tell me merely what the letter looked like, was as ludicrous, forsooth, as their suggestion that I might move in the matter without Watson. That they could not, at that moment see that I would need to know who might be the buyer for such a letter – and buyers I knew well that there would be – I ascribed to their extreme distress at the time. I understood the horrors of war no less well than they –  if it became known that we chose to support Prince Alexander against Russia, then Austria-Hungary and Turkey would take it as an indication that we might allow them to make a move against their long-time enemy.

I became aware that my period of silent contemplation had lasted longer than is, perhaps usual in polite society (although Watson, ever the good host, had offered the gentlemen some of our fine sherry and a biscuit) and made haste to apologise: one does not, after all, keep the Prime Minister waiting. He was surprised when I gave him the name of the person who had written the letter, but then smiled a little. I think until that point he had quite distrusted my ability, and I was reminded once more how often one needs to show away a little to assure the client of one’s bona-fides. The quiet man is often not so high in the world’s estimation, though he might be more able than the braggart.

‘Have you informed the sender – let us not name him here -  that his letter is missing?’ I asked Hope.

‘Yes, sir, a cipher telegram has been despatched.’

‘Perhaps he desires the publication of the letter.’

‘No, sir, we have strong reason to believe that he already understands that he has acted in an indiscreet and hot-headed manner. It would be a greater blow to him and to his country than to us if this letter were to come out.’

‘If this is so, whose interest is it that the letter should come out? Why should anyone desire to steal it or to publish it?’

‘There, Mr. Holmes, you take me into regions of high international politics. But if you consider the European situation you will have no difficulty in perceiving the motive. The whole of Europe is an armed camp. There is a double league which makes a fair balance of military power. Great Britain holds the scales. If Britain were driven into war with one confederacy, it would assure the supremacy of the other confederacy, whether they joined in the war or not. Do you follow?’

‘Indeed, very clearly. It is then the interest of the enemies of this potentate to secure and publish the letter, so as to make a breach between countries?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And to whom would this document be sent if it fell into the hands of an enemy?’

‘To any of the great Chancelleries of Europe. It is probably speeding on its way thither at the present instant as fast as steam can take it.’

Mr. Trelawney Hope dropped his head on his chest and groaned aloud. The Prime Minister placed his hand kindly upon his shoulder.

“It is your misfortune, my dear fellow. No one can blame you. There is no precaution which you have neglected. Now, Mr. Holmes, you are in full possession of the facts. What course do you recommend?”

I told my distinguished visitors, with some sorrow, that they should prepare for war, for given the facts as presented to me, it seemed impossible that it should not happen. It was clear that the document had been taken nearer to the seven-thirty when Hope put it in his despatch-case, then the eleven-thirty when he and his wife had retire to rest: that being the case, where could it be now? Anywhere, as I told them as I escorted them downstairs. I should have to run around now, and find the agents to whom such a valuable piece of writing might be sold, and do by utmost to remedy their loss.  Being assured that I had the nearly limitless resources of the British Treasury at my command – which made me smile for I was convinced by something Mycroft had once let slip that they were by no means as limitless as represented - I returned to our drawing room contemplating ways and means, and informed Watson that I should be calling on Oberstein, La Rothiere and Eduardo Lucas. He informed me at once that I would not be calling on the latter, and I found myself halted in my nascent quest by the news of his death.

‘This is very surprising,’ I said to Watson, after he had read me the somewhat highly-coloured account. ‘I cannot help thinking that there is some connection: was this a rival agent, and has the letter now gone to a second owner? I think it must be Lucas who is the designated receiver of the letter, for his house at Godolphin Street is but a stone’s throw from Hope’s house in Whitehall: the other agents live further away, and would find it harder to be in the right place at the right time. There was a window of only a few hours, after all. Propinquity, we may find, could be the key to how the letter was disposed of so quickly. And is this death connected to the letter or not? It does not do to theorise ahead of one’s facts, as I have often observed to you: _post hoc_ is not _propter hoc_ after all. So I must make enquiries as soon as may be, and then I must  -  why are you smiling at me just _so_ , Watson?’

‘I should not smile when the fate of a nation hangs in the balance; it is inappropriate in the extreme, but I confess that I love to see you engaged so deeply in your work. I rejoice – you cannot know how much I rejoice -  to see this lightening of your mind when it has wearied in darkness so many days, my dear, my very dear Holmes. And you amuse, as well as delight me: let me say it. Do you know that your whole appearance alters when you are thus? Your eyes gleam, you knit your brows, and compress your lips: any villain seeing you would be terrified. No hunting dog on a scent is as eager as you. I love to see you animated, exalted, happy – and with a clean, a wholesome cause for your excitation.’

‘Why should you not smile? Why should not I? I have a case, John, a case, and one that is worthwhile. I will solve it: I love my country too much not to help her, but oh, I love the hunt for the hunt’s sake also.’ I pulled him from his seat. ‘John, John, you are the best of fellows. I do so lo – I am so grateful to you for putting up with my moods and my crossness, and my over-all impossible behaviour when I am in the dumps. What would I do without you, to be by my side and do everything that you do for me? And yes, you are right. When I am like this I am transported by the hunt, by the joy of my chase, that keenest and sweetest of pleasures. My mind soars: I touch the heavens. My spirit enlarges itself: I can do, can dare, can command anything. This, this is happiness, pure and unalloyed.’

I ventured to put my arms around him as he stood close to me. I was shy of doing so, but he came willingly into my embrace, and rested there, smiling so warmly, so tenderly, that I – was, I am very much afraid to admit, that I might almost have been about to – it seemed as if it would have been the most natural thing in our joy – my joy at the lifting of my spirits after so many days of depression, his more generous happiness at my joy, to bend a little further . . . to press my lips to his . . . his eyes were so kind: surely, surely he would not reject me out of hand . . .

A step sounded on the stair. We sprang apart, I conscious of a heightened colour and some heat in my cheeks; Watson still smiling, amused, composed. Mrs. Hudson appeared with a lady’s card upon her salver. Watson glanced at it, raised his eyebrows, and handed it over to me.

‘Ask Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope if she will be kind enough to step up,’ I said.

*****

We had brought the affair of the misplaced letter – the affair Watson, in his romantic way, insisted on calling ‘The Case of the Second Stain - to a triumphant conclusion. From the moment Lady Hilda had appeared in our drawing room, pleading to be told the subject of the letter, seeking confirmation that it treated of dire consequence, both to her husband and to the nation, I had been sure that the answer to its disappearance lay in her terror, for she presented the appearance of a woman pushed to the last endurance and I could guess why. I could not tell her the content of the letter: I was sworn to secrecy. I could not say to her, without the means of relieving her anxiety being in my power, that her anxiety should be relieved: the matter was too grave for easy assurances. But I much compassionated her distress of mind, and determined to assuage it. I would, I said to Watson, hunt her pursuer to the ends of the earth if needed, for I hated to see such anguish.

‘You were cold to the lady at first,’ Watson commented. I had spent a day or two, running in and out of our rooms, using all the channels of information I had at my command to tease out the threads of Lucas’s murder, and the Lady Hilda’s involvement, and after being baffled on every front, as well as getting thoroughly wet and cold, I sat, on this particular evening, bathed, warmed, fed, although by no means content, across from Watson. ‘She cannot have thought you friendly.’

‘I suspected her initially. She asked for secrecy from her husband, and I am a suspicious man: at first I considered a criminal connexion with Lucas, and grief over his death. But she loves Trelawny Hope, that much is plain; it is of him she thinks, it is for his honour she is jealous, for her nation’s safety she is in anguish. If she has anything to do with this matter she has done it unwillingly, I think, and I suspect – nay I am certain - therefore that she was under pressure. Her face, her figure, her air when she visited us showed the signs of a woman under desperate consciousness of impending disaster. I must find a way to help her, poor lady. Incidentally, she is very beautiful, do you not think so?’

He looked up at that. ‘Holmes, I cannot think when I have ever heard you call a woman beautiful before. You are not an admirer of the sex in general, although you treat them chivalrously and gently. I know that you rather distrust women – ’

‘ – do I not distrust men too: what leads you to think me foolishly trusting, a _naïf_ who takes all at face value? You know I do not do that, Watson. This supposed dislike – but rather call it distrust – of the feminine sex is a mere bagatelle compared to my distrust of humanity in general. And what has finding Lady Hilda objectively beautiful to do with trusting her? A leopardess is exquisite, a thing of power and grace, yet she will rend you without compunction should you put a hand in her mouth. I say Lady Hilda is beautiful. Do you not agree with me? I notice you yourself look upon her with more than common admiration, my friend.’

‘I think her beautiful, yes. She has exquisite eyes, the bone structure of her face is as fine as one of Phidias’ marbles: Athena herself. And as a doctor, I rejoice to see such beauty combined with health of course. But the pleasure with which I look on her is the pleasure with which I look on all beauty, Holmes. It is a cerebral pleasure only, and moreover, is imbued with that respect and distance with which any decent man looks at a woman, whether she be married or no.’

‘ _“What care I how fair she be, if she be not so to me?”_ Is that it, Watson?’

‘You have reversed the couplet, my friend: and no, it is not that. Have you known me so long, and not understood that it is not the physical form that charms me, but the mind, the soul, the spirit? The shape it wears is immaterial. I know nothing of the lady’s mind or soul or spirit, therefore although I say objectively that she is beautiful her beauty could mean nothing to me other than that it is beauty as we count it. I should see a rose with as much delight, nay with more, for the rose cares not if I admire it, nor can it be harmed by my admiration. I may gaze my fill upon it, inhale its scent, caress the crisped edges of its bud, and wonder at the dewed and silky fineness of the petal, its blushing colour, the gentle swell of the bloom as it unfurls. I may experience the rose sensually: I would not do so with a woman. Indeed, I like not to discuss her: it seems – discourteous. ’

‘You – you do not speak as most men, Watson. They would rather plunder the rose; pluck the bud and despoil it.’

‘I am no despoiler. I remember Minnie,’ he said. His voice hardened, became fierce. ‘I will not be my father. I swore to myself, an oath I hold most sacred, that I would never be my father. I have guarded my body and my thoughts, and my words all my life. I will not, Holmes. I will not be who he was. Consent: I will have consent to any loving act, or there will be no act.’

‘Then that woman will be most fortunate who is loved by you.’

‘I have never found a woman I could love. The most I have ever attained is esteem, and a quiet affection. Love is – well, it is not that, do not you think so, Sherlock? It is far more than only that, is it not?’

‘It is more.’ I did not know how to go further.

‘Beauty though,’ he looked at me and smiled. ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If I may trespass even in word upon her person, Lady Hilda is beautiful by the standards of our time. By the standards of our nation. Her eyes, which I consider beautiful because they are wide, and well-opened and of a clear blue-grey – are not beautiful by the standards of, let us say a Japanese, or Chinese connoisseur of beauty. They have not the melting softness, the exquisite deep hue of the brown eyes of the women I saw in India, who were regarded as beautiful. All things are relative. What I consider beautiful, another man in another place or time may not. Chaucer, you know, when he describes women, prefers a more delicate style than is now the fashion, although he too loved grey eyes.’

‘Do you – do you prefer brown eyes?’ It was, I knew, a stupid question.

He laughed. ‘No, my dear fellow, as a matter of objective fact, I prefer grey - a grey that is the shifting colour of our English skies, now dark with thunderous wrath, now light with sunny mirth. But whatever eyes I look upon, or whatever eyes look upon me, I confess to loving most the eye that will turn to mine with affection, that speaks loving kindness in its true and simple gaze. That turns to me as if,’ and his voice slowed, became pensive, ‘- as if the sight of me brought happiness. As if it could love me if I were to offer its owner love. And is that not very – human – to do so, to hold back a little until sure of love’s return? Are we not all cowards in love, Sherlock? So whatever colour it be – although I hope it will be grey - that is the eye I will love most. The eye that looks on me with love - that I could love – in return.’

‘Oh.’ I said. I felt that I might be blushing. ‘I like – I like blue eyes, John.’

‘I am glad of it.’ His smile was bright, teasing, merry. ‘Since you must live with a blue-eyed man every day. I thank you,’ and he bowed to me from his chair. ‘I thank you for not finding me an objectionable living companion. And I am very happy that the colour of my eyes pleases you.’

Confused, happy – uncertain - I could not answer, but fell into silence. I do not know where I was in my head: for once, I believe, my thoughts were all a-jumble. Possibilities multiplied before me, I darted down a thousand, tracing and retracing them in thought, until I came back to myself with a start, to find Watson watching me.

‘Return to me,’ he said, his voice soft. ‘I need a charm, Sherlock, to wile you from the abyss into which you fall at times. I shudder, indeed, to see how far you go into its depths, imagining myself calling for you to no avail, and you lost, never to return to me. What chasm, what deep have you plumbed this time?’

‘Possibilities,’ I said. I felt shy of mentioning them, and I think he divined it, for he merely raised an eyebrow, smiling, and reached over to lay a hand on my knee, patting it lightly. ‘And not depths – perhaps they were – they were depths I have not plumbed before. But John – Watson – we must -  this case . . .’

‘Indeed. I do not underestimate the importance of the case. We must set other things aside for a time. What can I do for you, Holmes, to further your investigation?’

I set him some errands to run – and indeed had many myself -  but the true revelation in the case did not come until shortly after a brief dispatch from Paris informed us that Lucas had been killed on the night of the letter’s disappearance by his cast off wife, Mme Henri Fournaye who now lay raving mad in the Salpêtrière under the care of the celebrated Charcot. Lucas could not, therefore, have had time to dispose of the letter, moreover search as I might, enquire as I did, it became clear that no demands had been made – that no question had arisen about the subject of the letter. This must argue that it had not been disposed of: where then, was it? Lady Hilda, I was convinced, held a clue – but she would not speak, indeed, had denied me when I asked for audience, so that I repented of my caution in discussing it with her – and yet, what else could I have done, being sworn to secrecy by the Prime Minister myself?

Matters stood at this impasse for some days, even further details of the news from Paris not serving to enlighten me further. ‘What do you think of that, Holmes?’ Watson had said as he read the long account aloud to me, while I finished my breakfast. ‘You have been quite silent on the case since our last conversation.’

‘My dear Watson,’ I said. I could sit no longer, but rose from the table and paced up and down the room, ‘You are most long-suffering and patient of dear fellows, but if I have told you nothing in the last three days, it is because there is nothing to tell. Even now this report from Paris does not help us much.’

“Surely it is final as regards the man’s death.”

“The man’s death is a mere incident—a trivial episode—in comparison with our real task, which is to trace this document and save a European catastrophe. Only one important thing has happened in the last three days, and that is that nothing has happened. I get reports almost hourly from the government, and it is certain that nowhere in Europe is there any sign of trouble. Now, if this letter were loose—no, it _can’t_ be loose—but if it isn’t loose, where can it be? Who has it? Why is it held back? That’s the question that beats in my brain like a hammer. Was it, indeed, a coincidence that Lucas should meet his death on the night when the letter disappeared? Did the letter ever reach him? If so, why is it not among his papers? Did this mad wife of his carry it off with her? If so, is it in her house in Paris? How could I search for it without the French police having their suspicions aroused? It is a case, my dear Watson, where the law is as dangerous to us as the criminals are. Every man’s hand is against us, and yet the interests at stake are colossal. Should I bring it to a successful conclusion, it will certainly represent the crowning glory of my career.’

I was interrupted at this point by Janey, bringing in a note.

‘Ah, here is my latest from the front! Halloa! Lestrade seems to have observed something of interest. Put on your hat, Watson, and we will stroll down together to Westminster. You have not seen the Godolphin Street house, have you? It is a curious house - a high, dingy, narrow-chested house, prim, formal, and solid, like the century which gave it birth.’

‘Prim and formal,‘ he said, as we wended our way through the busy streets. ‘Yes, I suppose we are in this century, Holmes, are we not? It is a pity, I think.’

Once arrived at the house, it was with a pure and savage joy that I understood the meaning of what Lestrade had observed – that the rug on which Lucas had bled had been moved, and must have been moved to get at something beneath. It was with rage and desperation that I saw, while Lestrade interrogated his police officer, that whatever had been in the hidden compartment under the rug was no longer there. It was with a dismay I could barely conceal under an affectation of indifference that I saw him return to the room with his officer and heard the man’s shamed confession that he had allowed a visitor to enter the room. But it was with very different feelings that I heard his story, recognising at once who his visitor - the beautiful, quietly-dressed young woman who had coaxed him for ‘just a peep at the room where the murder had happened’; and then fainted, so that he had run to fetch brandy to revive her from the nearest tavern – must have been. Who that woman had to be.

To make assurance doubly sure, I showed the constable her picture as I left. Lestrade had remained in the other room, so I could safely do so, and the little cabinet portrait had been trimmed to show nothing but the face, so I thought it safe enough. I could not help laughing at the constable’s amazement over that face, as Watson and I turned down the street, and I tucked my hand into his arm.

‘Come, friend Watson, the curtain rings up for the last act. You will be relieved to hear that there will be no war, that the Right Honourable Trelawney Hope will suffer no setback in his brilliant career, that the indiscreet Sovereign will receive no punishment for his indiscretion, that the Prime Minister will have no European complication to deal with, and that with a little tact and management upon our part nobody will be a penny the worse for what might have been a very ugly incident.’

‘You have solved it!’ he cried. He stood still in the street, his face alight. ‘Holmes – you have solved it.’

‘Hardly that, Watson,’ I told him. I released his arm to take both his hands in my grasp and hold them strongly. ‘There are some points which are as dark as ever. But we have so much that it will be our own fault if we cannot get the rest. We will go straight to Whitehall Terrace and bring the matter to a head . . .’

*****

‘And so that is another,’ said Watson to me at the end of the case. We sat together under the afghan, about to read for the second time that strange tale of Stevenson’s with which we had begun the year. ‘Another blackmail case in which Mr Milverton is implicated. I begin to dislike the gentleman very much indeed, Holmes.’

‘Indeed, as do I.’ I shifted to recline more comfortably, my head on his welcoming shoulder. ‘But I should not have brought it a successful conclusion had it not been for you, Watson. It was you persuaded poor Lady Hilda to confide in us and to retrieve the letter so she could get it back to her husband, not I. She trusted you.’

‘Oh, it is a doctor’s manner: I am accustomed to use it. It is nothing of note, Holmes, one has only to make the patient quite sure that one is kind, and has the intention to be kind to win them over to one’s side. And it was you who thought how to conceal that she had ever taken the letter in the first place. It was ingenious, Holmes, to slide it in between the letters already in the despatch box, and to convince Trelawney Hope that it was still there, and had never left the house. I could not believe it would come off, so bold a gamble as that seemed, and yet . . .’

‘Well, it was not hard; it was hardly a gamble at all. He was ready to be convinced, poor wretch; his livelihood, his reputation, all of his standing was at risk. So that the letter was returned, I do not think he cared how it was come back to him. He would have believed anything. The Prime Minister, however . . .’

‘Oh, he was not fooled. He was very much not fooled: he knew that there was something that we were not telling him, I could see it in his eye.’ He paused then, and smiled at me, ‘Now he too, has beautiful eyes. Wonderful eyes. For a man. Do you not think so? Objectively, of course, speaking as if one were regarding him in the same artistic light as, let us say, the Hermes of Praxiteles, or Antenor’s Harmodius and Aristogeiton.’

‘You cannot use the word ‘beauty’ of a man!’

‘Can I not? Why so, my dear?’

‘Well – one does not, I believe. Men cannot be beautiful, Watson.’ _Except you, I_ thought. _You are beautiful – would that I had the courage to tell you so. Do not smile at me so, John, my dearest. Do not smile, and kiss my brow, and tease me with that light in your eyes. You little know what you will set loose - a beast to raven upon your beauty. You do not know how much I desire you. And I have no cocaine, no morphine to quell my flesh. I fear that Mr Hyde lurks within my breast, famished and desirous: the respectable Jekyll grows weak, and I do not know how much longer I can enforce his power over his baser self. Do not tempt me so._

‘Perhaps we must agree to differ. I have found that men can be – equally as beautiful as women. I shall not contrary you, however, but allow you to think upon it at your own good leisure, and then we may talk again if you wish. So, let us return to your point: the Prime Minister was not fooled, no, not in the least.  Will you tell our noble leader of what truly transpired? You cannot betray Lady Hilda, surely; it would be an unchivalrous thing to do.’

‘Well, I shall not tell him the whole story. But I shall tell Mycroft. One poor, foolish little letter – the letter of a loving and inexperienced girl, and a whole empire is put at risk. We cannot have this happen: the risks are too great and the chances of success too small  - why, had Lestrade not noticed a change in position of a rug, had we not been in possession of some suspicion already about Lady Hilda, had you not been able to persuade her – it was a very slight chain of coincidence upon which was hanging such a threatening and Damoclean sword. Had one link broken . . .’

‘But it did not, Holmes, for you solved it. All is safe, and you have had thanks and praise a-plenty. I am so happy for your success, my dear.’

‘But I have not succeeded unless I know who is the brain behind it. That is what I  must solve, Watson. It was Milverton had Lady Hilda’s letter, as we know from the information she gave us, for Lucas let slip to her, when he told her she was in his power, that thence he had obtained it. So Milverton is again concerned, but this time not in blackmail relating to jewels, but to high politics. I fear that this is no small matter – I do not like what I see, and I am anxious. And then there was the attack upon you . . . and Moran, hating you, and perhaps seeking to do you more harm -  who knows? And Worth – and yet – yet it feels – it feels as if that is not all . . .’

‘Moran’s attempt upon me – if it were indeed Moran, for we have no certainty, only supposition - came to nought, my dear. I am wary now, and, I trust, will not fall into such a trap again. Milverton is a blackmailer: well and good. We must seek out his victims, succour them when we can and try how we can entrap the him in his own snares. Worth, I am sure, cares nought for us: we have little of value to him and he will not meddle with us, I think. So what do you fear?’

‘I do not know. It is all of them together – perhaps – it seems. If I knew, perhaps I would be less anxious. John . . .’

‘What is it?’ _His eyes, his blue eyes, his gentle, tender eyes. His loving look. The strength of his hands, his thighs. The demon in my breast. Hyde._

‘John, I am afraid.’

‘Do not be.’ He stroked my cheek. ‘Do not be. I am with you, and we shall prevail.’

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reader must imagine Mycroft’s letters written in cipher. Sherlock’s letter, except that part to be given to John, is also encoded.
> 
> “Poplar and Whitechapel Workhouse Unions were maintained, and where, only a few days ago, a severe illness had broken out: extreme gastric disturbances with vomiting and purging” This really happened on the appropriate date.
> 
> Mactear was real, and prospecting for oil in Persia when Holmes was there. Poliakoff’s machinations over the railway were a severe blow to Britain’s hopes of keeping the Russians out of the region,
> 
> The odd story about a troupe of British child acrobats was raised in the House, according to Hansard. I could not find out what happened, or if they really existed!
> 
> . . ‘This is a powerful passage,’ This retrospective takes place at the end of the holiday in which Holmes and Watson quote the “Queen and huntress chaste and fair” poem.
> 
> The French passages from Dumas are extremely important: it was always my intention to use them in this way. 
> 
> “The denouement of that affair had left both Watson and I shaken, for Inspector Gregson had investigated Scott Eccles with relentless efficiency.” I have taken the liberty of continuing the Wisteria Lodge tale in the way that seemed fitting with its homoerotic subtext.
> 
> Jack Saul, bless him, worked at Nassau Street with Mrs Collins which was a real brothel, and Cleveland Street also. Cleveland Street was not yet as famous as it would be three years later, and its proprietor, Hammond, still on the way up. The facts about Grant and Coulton, their ages and their habits are all from police records. 
> 
> William of Occam was a famous mediaeval theologian and philosopher. The sentence Holmes quotes is known as ‘Occam’s Razor.’ It is a sad fact that I heard about this concept first on a logic and philosophy course for gifted children when I was about twelve, and knew what it was before I could spell it properly.
> 
> June 26 – Henri Moissan reports the successful isolation of elemental fluorine by electrolysis of a solution of potassium hydrogen difluoride in liquid hydrogen fluoride.
> 
> Scientific discoveries or publications of books reported by Holmes in this work are placeholders for the dates of events.
> 
> “I have obtained a Leclanché cell” The most sophisticated wet cell. The dry cell had not yet been invented (Carl Gassner would do so in 1888) but Leclanché’s addition of starch to turn the liquids into a jelly rendered the whole thing less likely to leak everywhere.
> 
> “If it were possible to oppose a membrane between the two wires” what Holmes, in alas, a cocaine-induced frenzy, is prefiguring is the 1892 invention of the chloralkali process, the industrial method used to produce chlorine and sodium hydroxide. It now uses an ion-selective membrane to prevent the unwanted compound hypochlorite occurring. Watson is fortunate Holmes did not use either mercury in the Castner–Kellner process to avoid producing hypochlorite, or try to use an asbestos membrane. It’s a shame about Watson’s pen, though. It was used for the cathode.
> 
> John Osborn’s trial and subsequent sentence to penal servitude for life was much cried out upon, and attempts were made to have it commuted, given his youth. Toussaint and Coombs’ crimes were also from the time.
> 
> What happened to Freud’s friend Fleischl (a scientist more brilliant that Freud himself) was that he infected his thumb when dissecting, had to have it amputated, and the stump developed neuromas – abnormal nerve growths which caused intense, unremitting pain. He became addicted to morphine, and then Freud tried to wean him off morphine by substituting cocaine, to which he also became addicted, taking huge doses, and suffering all the side effects including sensory hallucinations. Despite repeated attempts to wean himself off both drugs, he died an addict at only 45.
> 
> ‘“Neither indifferent as to which of many possibilities may best explain, nor yet at a loss as to comprehend,” This is an extract from the paper that made Halsted, another brilliant surgeon, realise the extent of his addiction. His life is well worth reading about; he transformed American medicine and pioneered gall bladder and breast cancer surgeries: he was also in the forefront of the war against operative and post-operative infection.
> 
> Readers of Canon will recognise the story of The Second Stain, which I have been able to place here as Watson says he has deliberately concealed ‘the year, and even the decade.’ I have chosen a Balkan crisis as the cause for the original letter, and Alexander of Bulgaria as its writer after some hours of research into Hansard and history.
> 
> Hermes is sometimes regarded as an ambiguously gendered figure. Harmodios and Aristogeiton were lovers who saved Athens from a tyrant.
> 
> I thank all of you for your patience and kindness.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In ‘Hiatus Time’ we are in mid August to late September/early October 1893.
> 
> Mycroft’s first two letters were written and sent before he received the letter from Holmes with the enclosure for Watson. Until Mycroft’s third letter, Watson has not seen Holmes’ note.
> 
> Some necessary notes on people
> 
> Queensberry: John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, the ‘mad Marquess’ and father of Francis, Lord Drumlanrig (his first son) and ‘Bosie’, the Honourable Alfred Douglas (his third son and Wilde’s lover).
> 
> Rosebery: Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, 1st Earl of Midlothian, at this point in the story Foreign Secretary, and later Prime Minister. Reputed lover of Francis, Lord Drumlanrig.
> 
> Lewis Vernon ‘Loulou’ Harcourt, was the son of Sir William Harcourt, who was at this point the Home Secretary. He held a minor position in government as his father’s Private Secretary. Charming, popular, unscrupulous, and gay, he was jealous of Drumlanrig, whom Rosebery favoured over him, angry with Rosebery, who had spurned him, and wanted his father to succeed Gladstone as leader of the liberals instead of Rosebery. He was widely regarded as being responsible both for the anonymous letters denouncing him as a queer that Rosbery received, and for informing Queensberry of Rosebery and Drumlanrig’s relationship.
> 
> William Johnson Cory, a master at Eton, dismissed in 1872 when a homoerotic letter he wrote to a boy in his care was intercepted by a parent. Tutor of Reginald Brett, Viscount Esher, the Liberal ‘éminence grise’ of the 1880s and 1890s and of Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery.
> 
> Oscar Browning, a master at Eton, dismissed in 1876 ostensibly for subverting the establishment’s rules, but in reality for ‘too close and affectionate friendships’ with the boys under his care, one of whom (and the cause of his dismissal) was George Nathaniel Curzon, (writer of the Persian travelogues I have used for Holmes’ journey) later Viceroy of India.
> 
> TL/DR: during the 1880s and 1890s, much of the British political establishment had been at Eton, and a sizeable proportion of it had come under the influence of Browning and Cory who actively promoted Greek model erastes/eromenos relationships between older men and teenage boys (relationships which involved love letters, moonlight walks, protestations of passionate devotion, kisses and embraces - although possibly not genital contact). 
> 
> The homophobic Labouchère (a political outsider) and the homophobic but possibly conflicted Queensberry (a social outsider because of his brutality to his wife, from whom he was divorced) hated the group that they described as ‘snob queers like Rosebery.’ All of this is behind the Labouchere Amendment, the Cleveland Street Scandal in 1889, the increasing homophobia of the 1890s, the suicide of Drumlanrig in 1894, and the Oscar Wilde trials in 1895.

Since First I Saw Your Face Part 15

 

**It is dark, and Holmes is uncertain how long he has been lying in bed. His memory fractures into bright shards when he attempts to piece together the preceding days. He is aware of heat, and burning thirst, and an overwhelming stench. There are hands on his body. They do not hurt him, but they are brusque and ungentle. They turn and lift and clean him, and pat him when he complains. They hold cups to his mouth, and he drinks greedily. From his great distance, he does not recognise what the owner of the hands says, but he understands they do not threaten, although to him, it would not matter even if they did. He is untouchable, removed to some ethereal plane. John is with him, holding his hand and telling him all will be well, and so he knows he is safe.**

**_My dear brother,_ **

**_Following my last letter to you, I have wired money to Sigerson’s credit at Aleppo, Angora and Constantinople. I trust this may expedite your journey. Once you reach Constantinople you will be able to travel by train: I urge you to take the fastest possible conveyance. You cannot return to us too soon. As for Moran, my informants tell me he was much in evidence about Baghdad, but a reversal of his fortunes has occurred: von Nolde has declined to work with him, so he is at a loss there, and has moved on, whither I know not yet._ **

**_Dr Watson is – I will not say thriving, for he is not thriving – is assiduous in many good works for the poor, to whom he devotes the entirety of his time. He has turned over most of his practice to Anstruther, quite given up society for his work in the free wards, and sees no-one but our good Lestrade, and your little family. They cherish him as tenderly as may be, for they love him._ **

**_I am sorry to say he and I are not the best of friends in these present days, although he tolerates me as a source of information about you. I understand his resentment, although I much regret it, for I like the man. He is less cold in his manner to my Juventus – indeed, who could be cold to one so amiable – and so I hope he may, at some future, happier time, forgive me. This is a weary business, brother. We must lay hands on Moran, and kill his conspiracies for good; perhaps then there will be peace._ **

**_Trusting to hear from you with all dispatch, I remain,_ **

**_your affectionate brother, Mycroft._ **

**_*****_ **

**‘Where is he? In here? Pah, what a stench! Holmes? Can you hear me?’**

**Holmes is aware of the voice which summons him, but has not the energy to raise his eyelids. Deep in his mind, some vestigial instinct warns him he is in danger, but he can neither run nor fight, only remain still, silent, submissive.**

**‘I think it is the cholera. He has not responded for hours, Sir. I think it will not be long now.’**

**‘Good, I am glad of it. So you are dying, I see.  Do you hear me? You are dying, Holmes.’**

**Am I, he thinks, swaddled close in his weakness, am I dying? Is this dying? That is a pity. He would weep, but not enough moisture remains in his body for tears. He would have liked to see John in the body one last time, he reflects, as the voices beside him haggle and argue and bite at each other. It would be better if John were truly here with him.**

**‘I am glad of your death, but I thought it would come at my hand: you have cheated me, Holmes, at the last. I took money from you once. You bought me off, and I vowed then to repay you in blood for the insult to my pride. You balked me thrice of my prey, but at least perhaps Watson will be mine now, without you to protect him. Yet it is strange to see you thus laid low, for I told you when I last met you, the next time I saw you I would kill you. Do you remember?’**

**John, thinks Holmes. Why, you are with me, after all. Dear John, I am so happy to be with you this last time. They tell me I am dying, you see, and I would not go without telling you. I love you, John. I do so love you. I have loved you since first I saw your face.**

**Yes, says a beloved voice. I know. I have loved you too, for so long. Sleep, Sherlock, or you will not heal. I am with you. You will not die.**

**‘And now I cannot kill you. I would not come near, or set my hand on you for gold, you foul wretch, mired in your own corruption, lest I take infection from you. I shall not even waste a bullet on you. Lie there and rot: it is a worthy end. But if I am cheated of killing you with my own hand, at least I can carry report of your death back with me. Perhaps I may yet have the pleasure of seeing your lovelorn doctor dash himself to his destruction when he hears of this second death. I shall make sure to tell him myself, of course.’**

**‘This unfortunate man is in his last extremity, Sir. Will you not say a prayer for your countryman? I am not of your church, as you see. It might comfort him.’**

**‘No, I will not. Is it true he is dying? How long will he last now?’**

**‘In the cholera, Sir, it can be as little as twenty-four hours. He has lain sick here for two days. He is a strong man. But death comes to all as the end.’**

**‘Is he dying? Answer me the truth, you puling wretch.’**

**‘He is dying, Sir.’**

**‘Then let him die and rot. I shall take back news of your death to London, Holmes. I shall tell your Doctor myself, and gladly watch him suffer. As I hope you do now, in the knowledge that you have failed.’**

**Spittle, cold and clammy, hits Holmes’ face. The voices recede, there is the sound of a blow, then another, a cry, a curse. After a while, bare feet shuffle towards him. A wet cloth wipes his cheek and brow clean, and he is turned to his side. He feels the soiled and squalid sheet drawn away. His clothing is removed and water made astringent with herbs laves his burning skin. He is aware after some time that he has been re-clothed in clean linen, and a vague sensation of comfort drifts through his fractured mind.**

**‘We are all dying,’ says a voice, close to his ear. ‘From the moment of birth, all men travel to the grave. We are all dying. But you not quite yet, I think, stranger. Oh no, it is not God’s will yet for you to die.’**

**John, thinks Holmes, John, do not leave me.**

**_*****_ **

**_My dear Sherlock,_ **

**_I write firstly to apprise you of our news, but rather more to enquire as to why I have not had a reply to my last two communications. I daresay some mail or other has miscarried: pray telegraph when you are able. I am not the only person anxious to know how you are progressing._ **

**_Your Doctor brought the affair of the Workhouse to a triumphant conclusion, discovering through his investigations that the children had suffered from ptomaine poisoning, after being fed meat unfit for human consumption. He harried the wretched staff of the place like a terrier, not ceasing to enquire into the business until he had discovered a veritable web of corruption – fiscal and financial corruption, rather than simply animal corruption of the salt beef those poor wretches were given. He has enacted reforms which have left the entire place fashioned anew, and the board of Governors, many of whom are of exalted status, and strut high in society, in no doubt whatsoever about his views on their incompetence, venality and inadequacy._ **

**_I am grateful his ire – for he has been very angry - has been turned from me a little: now he has this new dragon to fight, he smiled at me, enquired quite courteously after my health today, and admonished me for my weight. ‘Digging yourself a grave with your knife and fork’ was his expression. He meant it kindly, I am certain, so I did not protest._ **

**_Here, we continue to have troubles at home and abroad. The Irish are a constant thorn in our side. Russia threatens us in Afghanistan and Persia; the French challenge us in Siam and stir up trouble in Egypt. The young Khedive of Egypt is restless under our rule, and foments revolt against the British. Gladstone will not support Baring, our British Consul General in Egypt, and is continually at odds with Lord Rosebery, who makes a tolerable Foreign Secretary but is too spendthrift in the cause of Empire, and wishes for more troops to be sent in to support British rule._ **

**_The unfortunate Rosebery himself is occupied about equally with Egypt, with depressing German pretensions in Africa, and with advancing the cause of young Drumlanrig, whom he has ushered into the peerage as Baron Kelhead, and made a Lord-in-Waiting. Gossip abounds about the two of them, for he does not scruple to hide his admiration, which if rumour be true, is returned._ **

**_Piqued by Rosebery’s neglect of him, Sir William Harcourt’s son, the detestable Loulou, threatens both Rosebery and Drumlanrig with exposure, but his threats may be pointless, for Rosebery is so indiscreet in his amour that Drumlanrig’s father is aware of it. What the most ignoble Marquess will do I know not, for he is a rash, violent, and ill-advised man, and already sufficiently exercised in his none-too-bright mind by his younger son’s liaison with Wilde._ **

**_As for Wilde, not a week ago I was obliged – and a heavy obligation it proved to be – to attend the last performance of ‘A Woman of No Importance’ as a gesture of goodwill, a douceur for several of our American diplomats whose compliance in an Armenian issue we wished to obtain. Most unluckily, Wilde and the boy were there with Robbie Ross, whom I believe is known to you, and also two of the Oxford set, Max Beerbohm, and Aubrey Beardsley. Wilde, Douglas and Ross were disgracefully inebriated, fawning on each other in public in a way which allowed of no misapprehension as to their relations with one another. Douglas in particular was all epicene elegance, and languished upon Wilde’s shoulder with an effrontery one could only describe as brazen._ **

**_I_ ** **_have no quarrel with poor, gentle Drumlanrig, whom I believe to be very sincerely attached to our Primrose (about whose proclivities no-one has ever been in doubt despite his marriage: he was part of Browning’s and Cory’s circles at Eton as were Esher and Curzon). No, Drumlanrig is an honest young man enough and capable of being discreet, but his brother is a detestable whelp, for all his coy eyes and pretty airs. He and Wilde mock the world and set us all at risk._ **

**_I confess to having felt a cowardly fear, a creeping terror of discovery as I sat there in the theatre, enduring the scarcely concealed disgust of my guests – they are stricter in their views, these Americans – as they observed Wilde show away like any mountebank. I hardly dared to glance at my Juventus, for whom, since he could not join me in the box with my wretched diplomats, I had obtained a ticket in the stalls. There, I could at least have the pleasure of seeing him and knowing he partook of a like enjoyment to mine in the play, though we could not be together.  And yet I was afraid – I, Mycroft Holmes, afraid – although only to you would I own it, brother - to look too long at my beloved friend, lest some mischance or mischievous observation reveal our affections to all._ **

**_Would that Wilde could only restrain his behaviour and be content to cherish the well-deserved plaudits for his literary endeavours! (One cannot deny he is master of his craft.) But no, he must make a show of himself and court condemnation. Meanwhile, with all these intrigues between our members of parliament bruited abroad and common knowledge to every bargee who plies the waters by Westminster, Labouchère utters daily anathemas against the ‘unnameable sin’, managing to imply in his rag of a journal that it is a vice so prevalent among the ruling classes there is not a politician  - or a servant of the government - untainted. May heaven defend us all . . ._ **

**_I do not know why I am rattling on like this to you, Sherlock. Perhaps it is because I am so worried, and in no other can I confide, for the tide of opinion seems to run more strongly against our kind each day, now more than ever. When men in high places are so indiscreet, how can we not be on a sure road to ruin? We have not been truly safe since the Cleveland Street business, and I fear we may never be again._ **

**_I am, moreover, most uneasy you have not written or telegraphed, for it is not like you to be derelict in such a matter. Doctor Watson frets. Although he is quite silent about his concerns, for his pride will not allow him to stoop to appear anxious, his eyes plead for news of you at each meeting. For your sake I make sure to see him every day, but my heart sinks when I have nothing to offer him. What are you about, leaving us in this painful ignorance? Reply to me at your earliest convenience, I beg you, or I shall begin to fear the worst._ **

**_Your most attached brother, Mycroft_ **

**_*****_ **

**‘I must get up. He was here, I am sure he was here. I must follow him.’**

**‘The man who visited you? He is long gone. Be quiet now, you are still weak. You must drink and eat and grow strong.’**

**‘There is no time, let me up.’**

**‘Try then. Here, let me help. You see now -  you cannot stand. It will be days yet, before you are able to rise from this bed.’**

**‘Let me send a message then. I have money.’**

**‘No need, we have money. I will buy paper, and you can send. But you must drink, drink now.’**

**Holmes raises his head and drinks. Under the cloying sweet-salt-sour of the liquid he tastes the bitterness of a drug. It clouds his mind, seducing him back into an oblivion where John’s arms hold him.**

**_*****_ **

**_My dear Sherlock,_ **

**_Two days ago I received your letter written in Tabreez, and the enclosure therein for Dr Watson. I do not know how it came to be so delayed, being nearly three weeks on the way. It has, moreover been three weeks now since I received a telegraphic communication from Tabreez that you had reached Diyarbakir, my last information as to your position. I do not wish to set urgent enquiries afoot, lest by doing so I counter whatever game you are playing, but my anxiety is now extreme. If I do not hear from you by the next diplomatic bag I shall cast all caution to the winds and harry the Legations for news of you, though it reveal my hand. I can only hope it does not reveal yours._ **

**_I have given your Doctor the letter, and repeated to him your message. He snatched the sheet from my hand and turned away, and if he did not weep it was because he would not. He dismissed me then in short order, and I did not see him again for a day or so, since he asked me to refrain from visiting. The first time I met him afterwards, he appeared, not elated, but comforted by the news, although of more recent days when we have no news of you he has been very sober indeed._ **

**_He has questioned me minutely at various times about your whereabouts, intentions and purposes, particularly about whether you had a mind to return to England, and I have answered him as honestly as I know how, representing to him you held him in great affection, and were anxious to make amends for the pain you had caused him, that you would assuredly return – return to him, I made sure to add. I endeavoured to make sure he understood you had deceived him with great reluctance and for his own, and others’ good, that I myself had been unaware of your deception for some time and that you were more sorry than I could well express to have caused him such grief._ **

**_I do not know whether he believed me. I am sorry, Sherlock. For despite this news of your resurrection, Dr Watson is not restored to his usual self. His task at the workhouse done, all matters arranged to his satisfaction and the children under a just and kindly rule, he began to speak again of journeying to Switzerland for ‘a little relaxation of the mind’. I had thought your letter would solace him – would arrest in him this urge to self-destruction -  but it seems he is still in a delicate state. He is aware, of course, we have not heard from you for some weeks, but I have endeavoured to conceal some of my anxieties, lest I further disturb the balance of his mind._ **

**_I have therefore judged it expedient to find another means of occupying his mind and hands. To that end, I have reached an accommodation with Lestrade which has sent your Doctor to Edinburgh, pretty nearly as far away from the South Coast, with its too easy means of decamping to the Continent, as we can get him. He is to work there with Dr Joseph Bell, and Dr Henry Littlejohn upon this recent strange murder at Ardlamont, an affair requiring a nice judgement of gunshot wounds and fine discernment into motive. We put it to him that in your absence, he was the best person we knew to go and represent the English forensic detective force (for although the crime took place in Scotland, the parties concerned are English, and there are financial issues involved as well). I hope the work will bring him some comfort: to be useful seems to be his only desire other than to seek some final oblivion. If we had not sent him to Edinburgh I believe I should have had to have him watched constantly._ **

**_It falls out happily with the Ardlamont case that Doctor Watson is known to Inspector Macdonald (who is also working on it) from the peculiar business with the Scowrers in which the late, unlamented Professor Moriarty was peripherally involved.  I will not say your Doctor was delighted to be chosen thus, but he did smile faintly at the thought that he might be carrying on your work, and consented to go. Much to my surprise, he visited me at the Diogenes before he went, and proffered a sealed envelope, requesting it should be sent to you at some convenient date. I will send it as soon as I have heard from you: I surmise the matters contained therein are personal, and I do not wish to entrust it to the diplomatic bag any further afield than Constantinople._ **

**_Matters in society here continue much as before. Wilde and Lord Alfred are separate at the present time, for Wilde has departed to France with his family after quarrelling with his beloved over the very bad translation Douglas has made of the scandalous ‘Salom_ ** **_é’. I am grateful they are not about town, setting up scandals. I feel sorry for Wilde’s wife and children, however, obliged to understand that they are not his preferred companions. Queensberry, also abroad on holiday, has made a scene in Germany – at Bad Homburg, of all places: to quarrel in a spa town, how absurd! – where many British diplomats and politicians were spending part of the Recess._ **

**_He wrote Rosebery, who was there with some other friends, the most outrageous letter, addressing him as ‘Cher Fat Boy’, describing him as a ‘snob queer’, a ‘prig’, ‘the greatest liar in the world’, a ‘Jew pimp’ and a ‘Jew nancy boy’ and threatening him with a beating for making Drumlanrig his ‘catamite’. I understand there were also several references in this intemperate letter to a part of the male anatomy which, in members of the Jewish faith, is customarily excised at birth – although heaven only knows why, since Rosebery, although married to a Rothschild is no Jew himself. I can only assume that Queensberry, ignorant as ever, is under some misapprehension as to the requirements for marrying into the Jewish faith._ **

**_After just missing running into Rosebery in the Kurpark Gardens – Rosebery was warned of his arrival by a friend, and fled precipitately to lock himself in his room, rather than meet his furious Nemesis - Queensberry spent a day stalking Bad Homburg and loudly proclaiming his intention of giving ‘that bloody bugger Rosebery’ a good thrashing. He was only restrained from carrying out his threats by the Chief of Police, and departed, still foaming at the mouth, after an intervention by the Prince of Wales, who persuaded him to leave Bad Homburg for Monte-Carlo the following day on pain of dire consequence. I shudder to think of what the German aristocracy must have thought of us watching these manoeuvrings – for you know nothing is secret in such a confined and excusive society. How are we to gain respect when our leaders conduct themselves so badly abroad? One day’s shocking behaviour can undo many years diplomacy, and we are not so well in with Prussia we can afford to lose face._ **

**_The mad Marquess is now back in England, having lost a great deal of money (which he did not have) at the tables in Monte. Alas, the fact that he was effectively commanded out of town by the heir to the throne, who supported ‘that bloody pimp’ Rosebery rather than him, has concentrated his mind wonderfully upon vengeance. I am afraid for Rosebery and poor Drumlanrig -  especially for the latter._ **

**_As for Wilde and Douglas, they will bring catastrophe upon their own heads, for I doubt their separation will last long, and once reunited they are sure to be as indiscreet as ever. When I think of the pains which I have taken – I and many others have taken – to lead our secret lives quietly and peacefully with those we love, I feel a degree of chagrin and distress to which I am not accustomed. It has shaken me, I confess, quite out of the quiet tenor of my ways. I cannot rest, nor be at ease. Perhaps I should retire to the country._ **

**_I am now extremely anxious to hear from you – your whereabouts, your plans, your state of health. It is a constant worry. I hear the cholera is bad in the East, and question whether you have fallen prey to the fell disease, or wonder whether you have unhappily encountered bandits less persuadable than those you formerly met. Do not delay further, but telegraph immediately. I wish very much to have good news to send to your Doctor._ **

**_I remain, in these difficult and uncertain times, your affectionate brother, Mycroft._ **

**_*****_ **

**It is very dark, and Holmes cannot see John any more. He calls for him, but he does not come. There is a light in the distance, and he walks towards it.**

**_*****_ **

**_My dear Sherlock,_ **

**_I shall send copies of this letter to Aleppo, Angora and Constantinople. I am most distressed I have not heard from you. The cholera is reported everywhere in the East, and has reached Europe – there are many cases in the Balkans - and Britain. Indeed we have even had a case in the Houses of Parliament - and I am exceedingly worried. Pray communicate with me as soon as you reach a government station, and relieve the pressing anxiety of both your concerned and loving friend, Dr John Watson, and your affectionate brother,_ **

**_Mycroft._ **

**_*****_ **

**_Sykes, British Legation, Shiraz. Report last known state of health of Sigerson and date departed. Reply Whitehall, Diogenes._ **

**_Lascelles,  British Legation, Teheran. Report immediately any news of Sigerson, If communication received from him, forward. Reply Whitehall, Diogenes._ **

**_Conyngham Greene, British Legation, Tabreez. When did Sigerson leave Diyarbakir ? Report state of health. Reply Whitehall, Diogenes._ **

**_Nicholson,  British Legation Aleppo. Report news of Sigerson. When arrived, when left, state of health. Report bandit activity, sightings of the Colonel, any news at all. Reply Whitehall, Diogenes._ **

**_Cumberbatch, British Legation, Angora. Dispatch immediately any news received re whereabouts / state of health of Sigerson. Report cholera and quarantine situation.  Reply Whitehall, Diogenes._ **

**_Ford, British Legation, Constantinople. Report instantly arrival of Sigerson. Reply Whitehall, Diogenes._ **

**_*****_ **

**_Whitehall, Diogenes London, no news. When left, had had fever but was recovering. Considered fit to depart by doctors. Sykes._ **

**_Whitehall, Diogenes, London, no further news. No communication. Lascelles._ **

**_Whitehall, Diogenes, London, Sigerson left Tabreez more than five weeks before date of this telegram. Last reported by courier from Diyarbakir, in good health. Was in safe hands.  Conyngham Greene._ **

**_Whitehall, Diogenes, London, no news of Sigerson. Moran departed Aleppo more than a week ago. Travelling to Constantinople via Antep and Angora. Regrets, Nicholson._ **

**_Whitehall, Diogenes, London, regret no news of Sigerson. Five died yesterday, cholera quarantine in force in entire region. Cumberbatch._ **

**_Whitehall, Diogenes, London, regret no news of arrival. Ford._ **

**_*****_ **

**_Nicholson, Aleppo, any report Sigerson? Whitehall, Diogenes._ **

**_Cumberbatch, Angora, detain Moran. Whitehall, Diogenes._ **

**_Ford, Constantinople, detain Moran. Whitehall, Diogenes._ **

**_*****_ **

**_Whitehall, Diogenes, Sigerson last reported Diyarbakir, en route to Antep. No other news. Nicholson._ **

**_Whitehall, Diogenes, Moran has not passed though Angora. Last reported Antep. Cumberbatch._ **

**_Whitehall, Diogenes, Moran not reported Constantinople. No news of Sigerson.  Ford_ **

**_*****_ **

**I will come back to you, John, thinks Holmes, deep in his own mind. I am not dying. It is only  - I am so weary, you see. I am so weary. I must sleep now. I am sorry I had to go so far away. I will come back to you soon, but let me sleep now. Dear John.**

*********

‘Holmes,’ said Watson to me, laying his hat on the sideboard as he entered our sanctum, ‘I am afraid I shall have to go to Edinburgh.’

‘Edinburgh! Sit down, sit down, Watson. I have filled your pipe my dear fellow, so take off your shoes, smoke and be comfortable. Your slippers are by your chair, and I made the fire up only half an hour ago.’

‘Indeed yes, Edinburgh. Is that tea? Thank you, my dear chap, how very kind of you. I am sorry I am so late in returning, but there was much to do. Pray do not cast the newspaper down so carelessly; I have not read it yet. Yes, it is a tedious long journey, and I have no real desire to be away from you, or from London, but I have been asked: indeed quite a point was made of it. It is apparent I can do some good by going, and I shall not be away long.’

‘You will be away at least a week if it is to Edinburgh you go.’ I reached for my Bradshaw. ‘Now, let me see . . . the Flying Scotsman will serve our purpose, I think. The Eastern line to Scotland by way of York is faster than the Western line by Crewe and Carlisle, and we may dine at York, for there is a stop of thirty minutes, when no doubt we shall all be made to tumble out and eat whatever atrocious repast the railway provides.’

‘We?’ He was smiling at me.

‘Well – I am at a loose end, my dear fellow, very much at a loose end. There has been little of interest since Trelawney Hope’s affair, and I am mired in such tedium that there is no bearing it. Also, I very much fear more such tasks will be directed my way, and I have no desire to be a political lackey. I should not object to a sojourn in Scotland for a few days I think. The University – the Advocates’ Library holds many volumes of interest to me. I shall study during the day, and after you have performed whatever task it is you must, perhaps we may amuse ourselves together, do you not think so? What is it you go for, by the way?’

He was still smiling. ‘You really – wish to come with me?’

‘I do. Although I also thought it was rather you did not wish to be away from me. You remarked as much in your preamble.’

‘I do not.’ He leaned forward and patted my knee. ‘But of course I did not expect you to give up London and the work to accompany me, my dear man. And as for what I go for, I am to act as assistant to Dr Sophia Jex-Blake, who is setting up a School of Medicine for Women. She already practices medicine herself – her Dispensary has been running for a year or more, now, but she wishes to enlarge the field of her service to the poor and improve the opportunities for teaching women medicine. She is a friend of Mrs Josephine Butler, you know - ’

‘ - I did not think you had any more to do with those people after the Criminal Law Amendment Act. So you are going to assist a woman doctor. I see. Of course, you were the obvious choice: you have told me before Dr Jex-Blake runs a dispensary for the poor, and you are becoming well-known in the field. But perhaps I presume, and you do not want me to come with you?’

‘Now why would you think that? Of course I do: I always prefer your company to your absence. Holmes, I am aware you do not like Mrs Butler and her set, but you are not _in principle_ averse to women in the profession are you? I know some rather old-fashioned medical men think them unable to practice medicine, but I thought - ’

‘Of course I am not averse. The fact I do not relish female company as you do does not mean I think women less capable. Would you call Lady Hilda incapable? She had wit enough to retrieve the letter on her own, and I daresay even without us she would have found a way to ensure its discreet return. She held out against our investigations until _force majeure_ made it clear to her that she could not any longer. And as for women doctors, I have no doubt for many women it must be a relief to be able to confide in a medical member of their own sex. I am sure that I, for example, could never confide the ills of the body to a woman – not because I would not think her capable, but for very shame: it would seem to me indelicate of me to face her with my, my grossness – so I am quite capable of reversing my supposition and entering into the thoughts of a modest and gentle woman obliged to confide personal matters to a man. He may not, after all, understand her feelings, or indeed her pains - as, perhaps, one of her own sex might.’

‘It is like your delicacy of feeling to think so, my dear. Although to a certain extent, you know, the art and craft of a medical man – or indeed woman – must be to strive to understand the feelings and pains of both sexes, regardless of what sex they themselves are. Certainly, I believe those women I attend in childbirth, or for personal matters, feel no false shame and so neither do I. I have not met Dr Jex-Blake, by the by – merely corresponded with her – but she writes as a sensible, practical person, and she is doing very good work. I am happy to lend her my little expertise if she wishes it.’

‘So when do you go?’

‘When do _we_ go?’ he corrected me. ‘If you will be kind enough to accompany me, my dear Holmes, I should like to go this Thursday next, and to return the fortnight following. Will the plan suit you? A day more or less makes no matter if it is not convenient to travel on that one.’

‘Do you indeed wish for my company? I should like to come, Watson, but only if I shall not be intruding . . .’

‘I do indeed wish for your company.’ He rose from his chair and seated himself on the hearthrug, stretching his feet out to the fire, and leaning companionably against me. ‘My dear Holmes, I cannot quite understand you sometimes. I could almost think you jealous, you fire up so readily.’

‘Of your company, I am.’ I hated to admit it, but it was clear he had divined the reason for my pique. ‘I am. You  - you are the friend and chosen companion of everyone: I am a solitary being, unfriended save for you.’ I touched his head as it lay against my knee. ‘Ah no, no. I should not say such things, my dear fellow. Forgive me, it was a momentary lapse. It is not even any longer wholly true since you have taken me under your wing, and given me the key to friendship with others. It is wrong of me to say anything. It will not be repeated.’

‘If it were, it would be no matter: I have no other friend I cherish as I do you, either. I would find myself jealous of your company also, were you to spend time with others.’ He yawned. ‘Holmes . . .’

There was a pause. I remained silent, waiting, for some little while.

‘Have you ever wondered,’ said he then, turning to look at me, ‘what it is which draws one human soul to another? What is it that makes one heart incline to another, without rhyme or reason? I speak not of the body’s attraction, for attraction is not half of it, but of a mysterious fine thread of sympathy, of a deep affinity, which will not be denied . . .’

‘I do not know.’ I touched his hair again, allowed my hand to rest on his shoulder as he turned back to the fire. ‘I have never known it before – before you.’

‘Plato had an answer, you know,’ he told me. ‘He believed  - or rather he made Aristophanes say in their drinking party, or Symposium, that in the beginning the Gods created humans as perfectly spherical beings.’

‘I recall I thought it ridiculous when I was made to read it, but continue.’

‘And these spherical beings had two faces, perfectly alike, four arms and four legs. They were of three kinds, he said: man-man, woman-woman, and the man-woman, the ‘androgyne’ which, he said, had one face female and one male.’

‘Now that I do remember, I think. He said there was one head to the two faces, which looked opposite ways; there were four ears, two privy members, and all the other parts, as may be imagined, in proportion. The creature walked upright as now, in either direction as it pleased and whenever it started running fast, it went like our acrobats, whirling over and over with legs stuck out straight; only then they had eight limbs to support and speed them. Go on, John.’

‘You have the passage just exact to the word. Now because these creatures were proud, and aspired to become greater than the gods, Zeus came to realise he must put a stop to their ambition, or he himself would be toppled from his throne. And so, because he was unwilling to kill them, they were cloven down the middle, their faces, which before had looked out over their backs, were turned to the cloven side, so they might always see they had been split in two, and their skin was drawn together over the navel, that they might not be skinless in front.’

‘An interesting hypothesis, but not scientific, especially about the navel,’ I told him, and felt him quiver with laughter. His hand caressed my ankle, patted it. ‘Well, it is not, John, is it?’

‘I know it, my dear. But so split, separated from one half of themselves, they felt a deep and desperate loneliness, and thereafter spent their lives searching for the half which would complete themselves, thinking of nothing but to find their lost companion, pining away and refusing all food until they died. So Zeus in his mercy put their privy members on the front, for until then they had faced outward also, so they might with mutual kindness, love and caress each other for their pleasure and joy, and, their love-hunger sated, turn again to their lives on earth. There is more - ’ he heaved a sigh ‘– but I have forgot it now. I was never a good Greek scholar, I am afraid. But that is what I think of such an affinity, somewhat as Plato does: one may find one’s true mate, and want no other. And Plato said this tale is why some men are lovers of women, some of men, and some women are lovers of women also. It depends on the half they are searching for, you see. I think he is too simple – I have known people who can feel love for either sex, and people who experience no attraction at all – monastics, for example - but it answers a need, perhaps.’

‘I wish it were so.’

‘Do you not think it could be so?’

‘I do. Yes, I do. If it were so – it would explain much . . . But what I see here and now is  - only those men who love women may live in safety. John . . . ?’

‘What is it, Sherlock, my dear man?’

‘I have a brother.’

‘I am aware of it: you told me as much. His name is Mycroft, and we are indebted to him for certain cases not unconnected with politics, some excellent wine, a pair of fat ducks, and a large quantity of oysters.’ He laughed at me then. ‘Do not look so surprised, my dear fellow. I have not your brilliance – will never have your brilliance – but I was able to deduce, I think, the identity of your mysterious friend in high office of some years ago, after you had told me more recently the story of your childhood. I do not know why I have not yet met him, but I hope one day to shake him by the hand, and tell him I am grateful for his kindness to you in your childhood. For the grievous tale of your youth made me weep – still makes me weep,’ and indeed, tears stood in his eyes, ‘and so I feel tenderly to anyone who solaced your grief.’

‘I think it is likely you will meet him quite soon: it must have been he who directed the Premier and Trelawney Hope to our door after all. He is a singular man. He – he lives very much – a – life not like other men, perhaps.’

‘He cannot be more singular than you, my dear. In my eyes, there is no-one with whom you compare.’

‘I – I – John, you - ’

He laughed at my blushing – I had felt the hot tide of blood rise into my cheeks – and rose to take me by the hand and draw me to the sofa. ‘Come, sit with me. What is it you wish to say?’

‘It is – oh, oh, I cannot.’

He was silent, waiting, his eyes examining my face with a pure and searching gaze beneath which my own fell. So deeply did it pierce me that I understood, suddenly, what it might feel to other men to be thus searched through and through as I divined in them their criminal thought. I shivered. And still he waited.

‘I cannot,’ I said in the end, miserable and confused. For all at once I had thought to tell him of Mycroft, of how he was a lover of men, and then, if he evinced no strong disgust, to tell him of myself. But Mycroft’s was not my story to tell  - I could not think how I had so nearly stepped outside myself as to forget - and now I cursed the cowardly impulse which had led me to temporise, to equivocate. I was nearly sure –  so very nearly sure of him. But it would be death to me if he left me and I could not, I could not take the risk of telling him all my desires.

‘Then do not.’ His voice was quiet. ‘Do not say anything you do not wish to, my dear. But know this, there is nothing you can say to me I cannot accept. There is nothing you can say to me which will change my opinion of you. There is nothing you can say to make me love you less, you, the dearest friend of my heart, my soul’s counterpart, lost, and found again. I will not be ashamed to call this love. It is the purest and highest love, love of one man for his soul’s companion, as the Greeks knew it. For thus do I love you, Sherlock.’

‘I – I cannot say it as you do, John. The words do not come easily to me, as they do to you. But – but – you are everything to me. Everything. I do – oh, I do love you. To be with you, to know our dear, familiar intercourse every day, to have your arms around me, to recline upon your breast, to have your hand caress my hair – I have never known such happiness. I wish . . .’

‘What do you wish?’

‘I wish – we might – always lie thus, together. That we might – know each other – ever more nearly . . .’

‘Do you, my dear?’ He kissed my brow, then my cheek. ‘So do I, I confess. I feel so deep a tenderness for you it seems natural to do this.’

‘And yet – John, is this forbidden? Unnatural?’

‘To love each other? No, why should it be? History and nature both commend this love to us: the ancient philosophers extol it. I feel nothing unnatural about it. I am sure if it were wrong, my heart would revolt against it, and it does not.’

‘Yet if Lestrade walked in to this room now, to see us together, what would he say? Would he not – would he not accuse us? Say because we are fond, and familiar, we must – we must indulge in, in those practices which men hesitate to name.’

‘But we do not, Sherlock. Ours is the love of comrades in the true, Greek fashion: I love you. I would lay down my life for you. I ask nothing better than to fight at your side. Lestrade - ’

‘John, he would say we were unmanly to indulge in these embraces. Or worse -  he would say we are sodomites, and damned.’

‘Unmanly!’ he released me and drew away, a flush on his cheekbones. ‘Forgive me then, for this unmanliness, this love which renders me less than a man in your eyes.’

‘Come back.’ I pulled him to me again. ‘I did not say I would, only that he would. You, unmanly: water is dry then! Wait, John -  do not be angry, but listen to me. Now, are your feathers smooth again?’

‘Perhaps.’ He laughed, but there was no mirth in it. ‘Forgive me: I did not think to find myself sensitive on the subject. I must examine why I was so. But go on, my dear, see, I am a child to your chiding now.’

‘Well, it is this. While we are here, together, the world shut out, all is well with me. To lie with you, in chaste embrace, to hold your hand, to caress your hair, to speak words of love – I am happier thus than I have ever been. But if I contemplate the same outside of these walls, under the eyes of others, what then? If you kiss my brow here, it is a sign of our mutual love and friendship. If you kiss my brow in Piccadilly Circus, such a touch, so dear to me, classes us both with the – forgive me – the sodomites and margery-boys who ply for hire there. It makes me a criminal, subject to a law which can imprison me. It makes you a criminal, a sodomite by implication, even though you are not. It could make us homeless, workless – worthless in society’s eyes. And I am afraid . . .’

‘I understand.’ He took me in his arms again. ‘Sherlock, I have no answer. But first, we are not ‘sodomites’. The unjust law under which men who love men suffer makes love between man and man a simple question of acts. In the first place, I do not agree that it is: to me this love is a question of souls, and who can legislate the soul? Moreover, we are not sodomites according to the old Act because we do not make the beast with two backs; we are not even criminals under the new Act, for I have never touched you with lustful intent or to incite you to what the law calls a crime. We share a pure friendship, a chaste love. We should not be afraid.’

‘And yet? There is doubt in your eye, on your brow, John. You do not wholly believe what you have said, do you?’

‘I – I am not sure. I too confess - like you, I – I tremble in the face of what society would say. You say Lestrade, if he saw us thus, would think us unmanly, or worse. It is true. He would. Anyone would. It is true if I kissed you in Piccadilly Circus, it would make us outcasts in the eyes of the world. It is true  - and it is wrong.’

‘Wrong?’

‘If – if a man comes to feel a love which ennobles him in his very soul, which makes him strive to be better, to be the best he can be, if in every waking moment he is conscious of a subtle and beautiful sympathy linking him to another being, and this being the dearest to him on earth - can such a love, which benefits both, solaces, heals, supports both, harms none and enables both partners to do good to many – can such a love be wrong?’

‘I do not believe so. No, it cannot be. I have seen love perverted, turned to anger and jealousy and murderous hate. I have seen love turned to an evil desire for power,  and used to destroy and debase. That is love wrongly directed: love used to abuse. But a love such as you depict – no, I do not believe it can be wrong.’

‘And your perverted love, your love which turns to anger and hate, which destroys and debases, even murders – is it wrong equally whether it is love between man and woman, or woman and woman – or man and man?’

‘Of course it is: there can be no doubt about it.’

‘And is love which ennobles, which solaces, heals, supports – is such a love right between man and woman?’

‘We are taught so, certainly. Not only right but most desirable: the chiefest earthly good, the _summa felicitate_ to which all aspire.’

‘Then if love which is cruel and destructive is wrong equally between men and women, and women and women, and men and men – and love which is noble and beautiful is right between men and women, tell me why it cannot be right also between women and women and men and men.’

‘Because – because the – we are taught – it is wrong for men to love men and women to love women. It is taught to us in our childhood, John. That for man to love man, and woman to love woman, beyond the bounds of a decorous friendship, is an abomination. An unspeakable crime.’

‘And I believe this teaching is wrong, Sherlock, based on a false creed, a creed professed by people who lived long ago, for reasons which have nothing to do with love. I believe if love is true and good, and noble, and helps, heals, solaces as we have said, then it is good, no matter who it is between. And I believe if love is hurtful and false and destructive, it is evil no matter who it is between.’

‘I agree, but that is not the question, John. I agree with you, love is love no matter whom it is between - but it is not the heart’s loving which is a criminal offence.’

‘No, it is the expression of it. And that prohibition sticks in my craw. For most people – I say most, not all, for as I have said to you before, I accept there are people for whom the physical expression of love is unimportant, the sentiment only being of value to them – most people when they feel a deep and true love, an intense and spiritual communion, find it natural to give it vent in caresses, in touch, even to the ultimate touch which men and women are to share in marriage. It is the natural end of love; we are embodied, physical creatures; it is proper for us to live in the body. Tell me why then, when love can be felt as deeply between man and woman, or woman and woman, and man and man is it only acceptable that man and woman should reach a physical culmination, the expression of supreme love, together? Why is it forbidden to woman and woman, or to man and man?  I do not know. Yet it is so forbidden and so I say to you it is true; Lestrade would think us unmanly, or worse if he saw us even kiss. But I say also it is wrong that he, and society, would think so.’

‘And this is your true belief? With your hand on your heart, John, it is your true belief? What one man does with another, one woman with another –which is like to what man does with woman – you truly believe there is nothing wrong, nothing shameful in this?’

He took my hand, clasped it in his own, and brought it to his heart. ‘It is my true belief. I do not know why I think so unlike others: I was not brought up to think so. I do not know why what society thinks is alien to me. I am not a man of great learning – I am not like you, my dear fellow. I do not pretend to any great wisdom, to any arcane or esoteric knowledge. I am a doctor, and I have been a soldier, and so I suppose I have knocked around the world a little, and perhaps rubbed shoulders with a greater variety of men than some others. I have observed love in many times and places, and of many sorts. And thus it has come to be my belief, that the ultimate expressions of love, physical as well as spiritual, are natural between man and woman, or woman and woman, or man and man. It matters not to me what – oh, I do not know how to say this – what parts they have. It matters whether the caress is given and received freely and with love.

‘But the law prohibits it. Between man and man.’

‘It does.’ He took both my hands, and moved me so we sat face to face, our fingers entwined. ‘And this is why, my dear Sherlock, any man now who loves another must think carefully about what he will do. About what danger he puts his lover in, and what might come to him if he did. Even with all love and trust, it must be thought on.’

I could hardly breathe. ‘But if a man – who loved another man, who trusted in him with all his soul – were willing to, to give all – to brave the danger – to brave the world – to be everything, b-body and soul to – to the man he loved – what then?’

He released my hand to stroke my cheek, and I closed my eyes. ‘Then any man so loved and trusted would be fortunate beyond all good fortune. If I were so fortunate – to be loved in such a fashion – oh, I would do anything, dare anything, brave anything if it meant I could – love – body and soul - the man I loved.’

‘John . . .’

‘I would brave anything, Sherlock, but I would not bring harm to the man I loved. I would – love him – but I would not bring him harm. I would never bring harm. And so I would want to – I would need to - be very sure.’

‘And – and if, if, there were ever – a man – you loved – a man with whom you wished to share – the culmination, the physical culmination you spoke of as – as the rightful, the most natural end of love – would – would you? If you – could, safely, would you?’

‘I would.’ He raised my hands to his lips, and kissed my fingers, his mouth warm and soft. The brush of his moustache, the silk of his skin made me shiver. ‘I would be honoured to share myself with him in love. I can think of no greater happiness. But I would have to be sure. I would have to be sure I did not put him at risk.’

‘But if he – if the man you loved was – was willing to take such a risk? If, if he – w-wanted you to – share with him? Loved you – equally, and, and wanted to – share himself with you? B-body and soul? Would you think it wrong?’

‘I have said: I do not think it wrong. I would be most honoured. If he could love me, could consent to share all himself with me - body and soul – it would be the greatest honour. Believe me, Sherlock. Pray do believe me, my very dear.’

A silence fell between us. I looked into his eyes, and saw his truth there; in mine I believe he could see all my doubt, my hesitation and fear – my longing and my love for him. I believe a promise passed between us in our long gaze. We would be kind to each other henceforth, since we consented together in love. I lay content within his arms again, pressed close and warm, no words needed. We did not exchange a kiss, not then. We were too new, I think, to the idea that we might – that such a thing could be. I had doubted him, doubted he would want to share, wondered whether he held me in such kind as I held him. He, I know, had thought me one of those who set no store by the body’s desires. Indeed, I felt no desire in the moment of truth: all was too strange. But he knew my heart, I was certain, and I knew his.

It was a perfect hour, such an hour as comes but rarely. When it ended, as end it did, with the drawing in of dusk, and the little, comfortable necessities of life – Mrs Hudson and Janey with our dinner, the fire to mend and make up anew, candles to light and curtains to draw, the ordinary prose of the day – I felt no urgency, no need to make haste. I did not want a swift, raw consummation, if consummation there was to be. For me, it was new, and sweet – inexpressibly sweet - to look at him, and to see his smile, and his kind eyes, and to know each of us that we loved one another. The rest would come later: to love, and know myself beloved, was the purest happiness - and all I needed.

*****

Our trip to Edinburgh, whence we went a few days later, passed off excellently in the main, indeed, to begin with it was a halcyon period for us. We had taken a suite of rooms for the two weeks. We would formerly have taken a double bedded room, but decided that to do so might be unwise in that staunchly pious city; moreover neither of us could forget the comments that had been made over the affair at Wisteria Lodge. It seemed prudent to take a suite with two bedrooms, and so we did, dull little rooms, with narrow beds in which two could not lie together. But our drawing room was comfortable, and with the curtains close drawn, the fire lit, and the sofa pulled up to it, we spent several happy evenings.

The weather was cold and drear, it grew dark at four, and the wind howled around the inn, but the tumult was outside, and we safe within. Watson’s work was not onerous – he went out whistling, after breakfast, with the sheaf of papers on which he had scribbled directions and comments the night before. In the morning he investigated those perilous haunts of vice in the older – and not so pious - part of the city, prowling around places where Dr Jex-Blake, by reason of her sex, could not safely go, to find out how best she could help the unfortunate women who suffered and died there. In the afternoon he was occupied with the doctor and her assistants: I believe his experience of setting up hospitals, teaching students, and doctoring in the army was of great value here. At tea time he returned with another sheaf of papers, smiling absently at me as he entered, then imbibing huge draughts of tea while he scribbled further comments and directions, until he was done, when he would throw down his pen with a great sigh of relief, to turn and embrace me, and sit close with me before the fire.

When he had left in the mornings, I repaired to the University, where, thanks to Mycroft’s interceding for me, I was given free rein in the Advocates’ Library. I had long been interested in the older languages of the islands which we inhabited, and how the successive waves of invasion had shaped and changed them. During my childhood in Cornwall, it had amused me to listen to the soft tones of the local folks, and even more to the elderly people who spoke the original language of the country - Kernowek, a tongue akin to Breton and Welsh. It derived, I understood, from the Brythonic dialect, which, with Goidelic, had been one of the two languages of the islands before the Caesars came to straighten our narrow roads and replace our huts with their forts. Goidelic, of course, had developed into Irish and Scottish Gaelic, and the declining tongue of Gaelg spoken on the Isle of Man. I pored for hours over dusty manuscripts, finding in works such as Isidore’s comments on the Maxims of St John Damascene (written in Latin and glossed in Gaelic) and the Book of the Dean of Lismore, ample evidence of the development and divergence of the two branches of language from their original Insular Celtic. An exceedingly useful ‘Galick and English Vocabulary’, a rare and delicate printed book dating from 1741, which had been compiled by the Jacobite poet Alasdair MacMhaighstir (or Alexander Macdonald, as the English form runs) for the use of charity schools, was a source of much delight to me: I committed as many pages to memory as I could.

Our evenings, John and I spent together, discoursing amiably of the events of our day, and sampling the excellent Scottish whiskies available in our hostelry. It was, as I have said, a halcyon time – and yet . . .  and yet . . . I would be expounding some theory to Watson, and he would glance up from the glass he tilted this way and that, watching the firelight dance in the whisky’s meniscus. I could not describe exactly what was in his eye – but I would find myself halting, breathless, beneath his dark blue gaze, a serious, questioning gaze, that pierced deep into me. Our eyes would lock, and then he would smile a little, and glance aside. Or he would be telling me some story or other, and I would find my attention transfixed by the curve of his lips, my eye drawn inexorably to them, and I unable to look away. He would notice and falter in his speech and I would realise, suddenly, where I looked, and question him, or make some comment to divert his too close attention to my fault. I did not have my violin with me – but if I had, and if I had played upon it the tune of our evenings, their flowing melody would have been interrupted by strange, abrupt halts, by tingling sharps and tremulous grace-notes, by questioning Phrygian and plagal cadences that left the listener on edge, and craving resolution.

Several times I wondered whether there would be a resolution.  It seemed so close, and yet . . . it did not. On our penultimate day there, I was investigating a dictionary I had not seen before, looking particularly for words related to the sea, that I might compare them to the Cornish words I knew, for growing up on the coast, it was with those I was most familiar.

Sea, of course, I knew in Kernowek to be _‘mor’_ , its plural being _‘moryow’_ and the cognate being _‘muir’_ in Scottish Gaelic and also in Irish. Several related words were similar: _‘muir lan’_ , for high tide in both Gaelic tongues becoming _‘morlanow’_ in Kernowek and low tide’s _‘mordrik’_ becoming to _‘muir-tràigh’_ in Scottish Gaelic, and simply _‘d_ _ίthr_ _á’_ in Irish Gaelic, while _‘muirdhreach’_ seemed to be used for a seascape. I tabulated my lists neatly over several days, finding many such similarities.

It was growing dark on that particular evening, and the library was about to close its doors when I came across a word which did not fit the pattern. The word sailor, I had discovered, was _‘marner’_ or _‘morwas’_ in Kernowek -  but in Gaelic was _‘seolt_ _óir’_ or in Scottish Gaelic _‘seòladair.’_ It seemed strange to me that there should be no word with the _‘muir’_ beginning, but a little more hunting gave me the Scottish _‘muireach’_ as a synonym for mariner. I wrote it down with some satisfaction, only to become aware that the Keeper of the library, an erudite fellow with whom I had already had some very pleasant conversation, was standing by my side with the key in his hand. I thanked him for his courtesy in waiting and allowing me to complete my work, explaining the difficulty I had been in.

We discoursed for some minutes on comparative linguistics – a study in which he, of course, was far more practised than I - and I showed him my list. He remarked upon how the _‘muir’_ of Scottish and Irish Gaelic changed to the _‘mor’_ of Cornish, commenting that the Anglicised version of _‘muir’_ was often now spelt _‘mor’._

‘Indeed,’ I replied, ‘and here, look, here is a strange thing -  there is no congruence at all in this case: we clearly derive ‘sailor’ from _‘seolt_ _óir’_ and _‘seòladair’_ , but there appears to be no real link between Cornish _‘morwas’_ and Scottish _‘muireach’_ , both used for a sailor - while Irish has no similar word at all.’

‘There is not,’ he told me, ‘at least to my knowledge, but you must consider, Mr Holmes, these languages are not so simple as you think. You cannot only look from one word to another, but must think around the problem. And, incidentally, Irish has _‘mairnéalach’_ , which corresponds to the Cornish _‘marner’_ , and the Scottish use _‘_ _màirnealach’_ , which I see you have omitted from your list: all of them clearly related to the English ‘mariner’, and coming, of course, from a common root: there is scarcely any language where a ‘mer’ or ‘muir’, a ‘mar’ or ‘mor’ root does not signify the sea. It is the consonants that signify, of course: the vowel sounds are always subject to subtle shifts.’

‘That still does not solve the issue of those particular words,’ I confess I was feeling a little irritable: I was not used to being lectured. I gathered my books and pens, and rose to my feet. ‘But I am grateful for your help, Sir.’

‘Let me assist you further then, young man,’ he told me. ‘You know that Cornish has _‘morwas’_ and Scottish _‘muireach’_. It is true that Irish has nothing comparable to the Cornish. But if instead of looking for one word, you look at compounded words – ha, you did not think of that, I perceive – you may combine your _‘muir’_ root word with _‘ceartaigh’_ which means to rectify, or guide aright, and you will obtain a word which is not, it is true, in general use as a noun, having been superseded by the more common _‘seolt_ _óir’_ , but which lives on in one of the most common of Irish names, that of the Kerry clan of the Murtaghs, Murtags, and Murtaughs. We should properly call them the Muircheartaigh clan, or the clan O’ Muircheartaigh. You English, replacing the diphthong ‘ui’ with ‘o’, would say ‘Moriarty’ of course.’

‘Moriarty!’

‘Yes,’ he went on. ‘The name may be familiar to you: there was a famous Irish Bishop Moriarty, renowned for his sermons against the Fenian cause, and I daresay I could find you many another, whether in Ireland or over here, in either form. Indeed there is an English Moriarty who is an eminent mathematician: he has written a book on the binomial theorem which we have in this very library. The words which combine to make up the name – _‘muir’_ and _‘ceartaigh’_ , you may like to know, signify one who rectifies a route, or guides a route at sea – a sea-guide therefore, or sailor, or navigator. So you see you are not lost at all: you had only to go a little further to find the truth.’

I am certain I must have seemed entirely demented to the good Keeper, for I believe I stared at him for quite three minutes in silence, while my brain whirled within my throbbing skull, and I constructed, in those dazzling moments, an entire hypothesis. Upon coming to my senses, I thanked him most heartily for his assistance, shaking his hand, and assuring him he had been of immense value to my research before I bolted from the library to find Watson.

I had to find Watson. I had to tell him, for I was certain now that I held the key to the crimes that we had seen. Moriarty was the spider at the centre of the web, this meek professor, sitting in his quiet London house . . . _a house with two doors . ._. he was the Navigator, of whom I had heard in Antwerp. Moran – heavens, how had I never thought to think that the Gaelic root ‘mhor’ meant ‘big’ – was his second-in-command, Milverton, that still shadowy figure, his financier and Worth, the thieving diamond dealer, his fence.  A triumvirate: three consuls of Crime - and Professor Moriarty their Emperor, their Caesar -  the Napoleon who ruled over them all.

I was certain. I had never been more certain of anything in my life. And now I would defeat him, cost me what it might.

*****

‘I wish you would not do this.’ Watson frowned. ‘Holmes, my dear fellow, you have thought of, spoken of, nothing but this business since we returned from Edinburgh a month ago. It is truly an _id_ _ée fixe_ , almost an obsession with you. To intrude on the man’s house, to penetrate into his stronghold is to run a tremendous risk: what if he returns unexpectedly; what if he discovers you? There can be no excuse for such behaviour. What of your reputation?’

‘I shall not be found out.’ I pulled my cap lower over my brow, slouching a little. ‘See, oh, doubting Thomas, am I not the very figure of a rat-catcher? And pray do not fondle Sukey like that: she is a working animal and must not be spoiled.’

‘She is the prettiest little bitch alive,’ Watson had reduced the little terrier to a state of abject devotion by caressing her silky ears and feeding her a judiciously measured portion of our breakfast ham. ‘Are you not, my poppet? Indeed, you are, yes, there now, my sweet. I should so love a dog,’ he went on, a wistful look in his eye, ‘but not in the city I think. Whence had you her again?’

‘Oh, it is always our friend Shinwell Johnson who obtains these things for me.’ I bent to stroke the dog. ’She is indeed very pretty – I like the little white stripe down her nose, do not you? - and warranted a most excellent ratter. He borrowed her from a friend in the country – a shady friend, of course.’

‘Johnson’s friend may be shady, but he is good to his dogs. She is in fine condition.’ He patted her head, and stood up, stretching. ‘But whether she will find any rats in that household I do not know, my dear fellow, and you will look extremely foolish if she finds none.’

‘You underestimate me, Watson; I am wounded, nay, I am pierced to the core. Of course there will be rats. Would I be posing as a rat-catcher if I knew there would be no rats? Believe me, Watson, there are rats a-plenty. They began to increase upon the household some fifteen days ago, and are now grown extremely troublesome. And numerous. It is almost as if there were a secret supply of them, so rapidly do they increase.’ I smiled at him. ‘Do give me a little credit, my dear.’

I could see from his face that he was struggling to remain grave, but he could not; there was a spark of laughter in his eye, a quirk of the lip that gave him away.

‘Dear Holmes, you are incorrigible. Only you would think of such a thing: to seed a man’s house with rats that you may visit in the guise of a rat-catcher. It is devilishly ingenious, if it is nothing else.’ He was serious again, frowning. ‘But I still cannot like it. You say you are convinced, that this linguistic proof is irrefutable  - that the Professor is he whom his minions refer to as the Navigator -  but consider, only consider, my dear chap, how tenuous a thread it is from which all this enterprise hangs! Moriarty is the commonest of names in Ireland; there are even Moriartys in England: one poor man of that name who worked in the arsenal at Woolwich was burnt to death in a spill of hot metal this summer – I was called to examine the remains, such as they were, if you recall -  but for you to settle on this Moriarty – a professor of mathematics and astronomy, a serious man, with never a stain on his character – as some master criminal . . . it beggars belief, if I am honest with you.’

‘I hope you will never be anything but honest with me. But I will prove it to you, Watson, and then you will be sorry that you doubted me.’ It pained me that he was no hotter on the trail, that he held back from conviction. He had supported me so eagerly before, yet in this he was lukewarm, uncertain. ‘And I do not believe there is no stain on his character: there are certain leads I am following which I am not yet willing to disclose . . . Only trust me, I beg of you.’

He took my hands in his. ‘Dear Holmes, I have hurt you.’

‘By not believing in me, yes, I confess it.’

‘Then I beg your pardon, my dear fellow. I shall doubt no longer: after all, you have never failed my faith. And I am the dullest of mortals: it is not surprising you see the pattern where all is dark to me.’

‘Not so,’ I bent to brush my cheek against his. ‘You are my light, always, always, John. If you will only trust me, I promise, there will be proof. There is not a criminal but does not leave a trail: no matter how skilled he is, there will be one, and I will hunt him out. Have we not already discerned that there are three who work together? Would that have seemed credible when first we started?’

‘It is true: we have clear evidence that Moran, that Milverton and Worth are in some ways connected. I understand that, as you see it, Moriarty is their genius, and it is with his advice and direction that they think and plan. It is only – he is unassailable, surely, Holmes? What evidence can there be, that you hope to find by this visit?’

‘I do not know. I do not know, and will not, until I get there of course. But I am sure there will be something. The great thing is to be there, to see. To observe.’

‘I wish you would let me come with you then.’ His gaze was earnest. ‘I do not feel comfortable when you play such perilous parts alone.’

‘My dear John.’ It was my turn to smile. ‘My dear and stalwart Captain, my honourable Doctor. You may not: I forbid it. Nay, you cannot. You, my dear, could not impersonate a rat-catcher did your life depend on it: you are a man entirely without guile. The fine art of dissimulation was left out of you when you were created. You would endanger me if you were but to set foot over the threshold, for you will never sound other than what you are, an officer and a gentleman.’

He tapped my cheek. ‘I fear you flatter me with fine words to mask your iron resolve, as one who should humour a child. You offer me a sugar-plum and take away a greater toy. Well, I will not insist in this case: you are the master here. But be careful for God’s sake. It is not just your body, but your reputation that is at stake, and both are very dear to me.’

‘I am the master here.’ I took his hand. ‘But in all else, it is you, John.’

He returned my clasp. ‘Well, we are equals then. I would never seek to master you: I am your soldier, but never your Captain.’

‘You are my all. Come, let me go. The sooner I am there, the sooner back again.’

He embraced me, pulling a face as he did so, for the aroma of the clothes I wore was by no means pleasant – and released me. I snapped my fingers for Sukey, and she came obediently to heel as he handed me the leash. I was at the door when he spoke again.

‘Holmes – I have to know. How did you infest the house with rats?’

I looked back at him. ‘They are in plentiful supply around St Giles, my dear Watson. There is not a corner of those miserable hovels in which you do not find them squeaking and scurrying. Moreover, the bottom of the wooden gate at the back of the Professor’s house is quite rotten and soft, and the judicious application of a chisel gave me a small access. That done, I merely announced a bounty to the Irregulars: a penny a head for a fine, fat, young rat, caught live and released there.’

He chuckled. ‘Holmes, you have a criminal mind.’

‘Is it my fault if rats, once released into the yard, make a bee-line for where there is food in the house? It is merely their rattish nature to be drawn to richer pickings, indeed, I have no doubt they counted themselves fortunate, for, God help us, there is little enough for them to eat in some of those filthy kennels from which they came.’

‘That is true, alas that it should be so.’ He sighed.

‘And so they invaded the house in their dozens and made merry within. It was simple, you see. Although – the sixpenny bounty for a warranted gravid female rat may have had something to do with the rapid increase in numbers, perhaps.’

‘A criminal mind,’ he repeated, now unable to repress a smile. ‘Go then, yes, go! But for the love of God, be careful, Holmes.’

*****

‘I do not wish to know more.’ Lestrade put his plate down, and held up a hand. ‘I dislike rats extremely, Mr Holmes, pray do not mention them again. Doctor Watson, do you tell me that you assented to this – this escapade? That you -?’

‘Watson had nothing to do with it, and indeed was disapproving throughout: I believe he thought me mad, so do not blame him. Come now, Lestrade, you are a policeman: you use informers. When it comes to rooting out a criminal there are many ways and means justified that would not ordinarily be so. And I did, after all, or rather my canine companion did, disembarrass the house of its plague-ridden vermin, so some good was done.’

‘A plague that you caused! I am a detective!’ Lestrade sounded almost anguished. ‘Mr Holmes, you must not tell me of criminal acts. What were you about?’

‘I do not believe there is any law upon the statute books that legislates against the introduction of rats into a household, Lestrade, and for the rest, I was merely a rat-catcher plying my trade in the street. I did not go uninvited, indeed, they welcomed me with open arms. Am I to blame that I have eyes and ears? And do you not wish to know what I have to tell? We have already said that there appears to be some conspiracy here. It is not the ordinary criminal who is hard to catch, it is the one who hides behind a façade of respectability. Moran, Milverton and Worth, whom we believe to be leagued together in crime – discreet, covert, unprovable crime - are received in society; the Prince of Wales has dined at houses in which they are welcomed. I have this lead – miraculously, wonderfully given me, when I was not expecting it - and are you telling me I should not investigate it? The name Moriarty is derived from two Irish words that signify a navigator, Moran’s name is derived from a word which means ‘big’ or ‘great’. In Antwerp two years ago now, when I was looking into the sale of diamonds for the respectable Mr Wernher, I discovered that the apparently respectable Mr Henry Judson Raymond, whom you know, and I know – whom Pinkerton’s and the Sûrété know – to be Adam Worth, American criminal, and untouchable, since nothing is ever traced back to him - ’ I stopped to draw breath.

‘What Mr Holmes is saying, Lestrade,’ put in Watson, ‘is that in Antwerp, he discovered that these diamond – thieves, I suppose one must call them, since the diamonds were originally stolen from the mines – thieves answered to two gentlemen whom they referred to as ‘the Navigator’ and ‘Mr Greatman’, and that he believes these men to be Professor Moriarty and Colonel Moran.’

‘And you believe him?’ Lestrade turned to Watson as if he were the beacon of sanity in a storm.

Watson glanced at me. ‘I do. Lestrade, have you ever known Mr Holmes to be wrong? I have not, and so I will trust him now although this may seem fantastical. I do not believe he will lead us astray.’

‘I am wrong about many things,’ I said. Watson’s devotion, his confidence in me humbled me; they meant more to me than I could well say in that moment. ‘But, trust me, Lestrade, although the threads are tenuous yet, although the net is not wholly woven to trap him, and may not be for a while, if you will only be patient with me while I gather all into my hands, I will not fail you, not upon my life.’

‘It had better not be your life.’ Lestrade said. His face was grim. ‘For God’s sake pour me another glass, Doctor; never does my head so spin as when I am with the pair of you. Tell me, then, what you saw. For the world knows Professor Moriarty as a respectable man, an influential member of society, and an eminent astronomer and mathematician. If you have evidence that he is a criminal, then tell me what it is.’

‘There is circumstantial evidence.’ I accepted the glass Watson handed me. ‘Thanks, my dear fellow. Attend to me, I beg you, Lestrade, and allow me to explain myself. Firstly, the salary of a professor at the University is seven hundred pounds a year. Now the house Moriarty lives in is freehold, and he owns it outright, so other than the common necessities of life, he has very little expense. He is a single man, he has no family to support, and since his daily round is quite confined and unvarying, he keeps no carriage. His household is small. He has a valet, a pretty young man of German, or Swiss extraction, who speaks little English, a cook-housekeeper and a scullery-maid, a housemaid, and a manservant. Those are all Irish. His servants are very well paid: his valet receives eighty pounds a year, his cook seventy, and the other servants are paid commensurately above the usual rate for such work. Let us say that after his household is provided for, his modest entertaining, and his _menus plaisirs_ paid, he has a surplus of income over expenditure – always a happiness, as Mr Micawber tells us – of perhaps two hundred a year. Excellent then; he may lay money aside, and be in no danger of an indigent old age. You agree with me,gentlemen, that he should be comfortably off, living thus?’

‘I do.’ Lestrade sipped his wine. ‘You spoil us, Mr Holmes, this is a very fine burgundy. What follows then?’

‘In the course of my rat-catching, the dog led me into the Professor’s study, much to the chagrin of his valet and the manservant, who were unwilling about equally either to allow me into that sanctum, or to live with the rats any longer. In his study – an elegantly appointed study, wherein were two Louis XV bookcases in, I believe, tulipwood; a writing desk in kingswood – possibly veneered over oak -  in the manner of Charles Cressent;  a mahogany cheval glass dating from the reign of the late King William – a little display of vanity upon the Professor’s part there, perhaps - and a pair of K’ang Hsi plates which I do not think he bought for a song – in that study there hangs over the fireplace a painting by Greuze, who, Lestrade, was a French artist flourishing between the years 1750 and 1800. That painting, of an insipid maiden cradling a hydropsical young ovine, and entitled Jeune Fille a l’Agneau, sold for the not inconsiderable sum of one million, two hundred thousand francs – more than forty thousand pounds – at the Portalis sale in the year 1865. It now hangs in Moriarty’s study. This is not merely to speak of living in comfort, my dear Inspector, but of living in princely luxury. Tell me how a professor on seven hundred a year can afford such luxury, if not from the proceeds of crime?’

‘An inheritance?’ Lestrade’s suggestion was weak, and he knew it. ‘No, it cannot be - he is not well-connected. I know little about him, of course: I have never needed to.’

‘We should perhaps find out a little more about him,’ Watson rose and came to stand behind me, his hand on my shoulder. ‘It is circumstantial evidence, yes. But if he is so wealthy, the money must come from somewhere.’

‘There is more.’ I motioned to Watson to sit down again. ‘When I was in Antwerp, Mr Raymond and his cohorts mentioned certain marks by which they identified their packages of diamonds, to wit the serpent sword, the spread-eagle, the star of six and the triple stars. I enquired particularly after these when I spoke to Julius Wernher upon my return, for I knew that the jewellers and exporters identify their goods and the provenance thereof, by certain signs. None of them were familiar to him, or to any of his colleagues: thus I drew a blank. But upon returning from Edinburgh, I have spent an instructive few hours in the records and collections of the College of Arms, and there I discovered, my dear Lestrade, that the spread eagle, sable upon argent, is the shield of the Moriarty clan, and the serpent in vert writhing around a sword in argent, the crest upon their shield’s helm. The three stars, or upon sable, and the six-pointed star - these are the shield and crest of Moran. It is ironic, perhaps, that the Moran family motto is ‘lucent in tenebrae’ – that is to say, they shine in darkness – for it seems to me that Moran is no angel of light, but a devil in the making. As for Moriarty, the motto of his family ‘scandit sublima virtutis’ – he ascends the heights of virtue – should perhaps be rendered as its opposite: he descends the depth of infamy. For so I believe it will prove.’

‘If you are correct, Mr Holmes,’ said Lestrade, and I noticed that despite his use of the conditional statement there was more conviction in his tone, ‘then it is indeed infamy and devilish cunning with which we deal. There is much to think on – and plan for, it would seem. But I shall certainly make some enquiries into the background of Professor Moriarty – even if my colleagues will say I am mad.’

‘No, Lestrade, that is the last thing you must do. Wait. Wait, and let Mr Holmes and I find out a little more for you. For we have channels you do not, and we do not want our quarry alerted by some clumsy-footed constable making shift to investigate. Will you not leave it to us? Let us go quietly about it, lest we alert our quarry. If he is possessed of such great wealth, and if, as we suspect, it can be from naught but the proceeds of crime, he has been working in secret for a long time, and successfully too. Let us not rush in incontinent and ruin all but be patient, and lay our snares, weave our nets secretly, as do they.’

‘It is you that has the cool head, Doctor,’ Lestrade rose to go. ‘For myself, the thought that such a criminal may have been operating in secret – under our very noses, forsooth -  makes my blood boil, indeed it does. Well, I will be advised by you in this, although, as I have remarked to you before, there is nothing I hate more than secrecy. Secrecy -  and politics.’

‘I do not like secrecy either,’ Watson said to me, after he had seen Lestrade downstairs. We were sharing the sofa together, my head on his shoulder, and his arm about me. ‘And all is secrecy, it would seem. We must be secret; this work is secret. I much prefer all to be open, to be clear in the light of day. But it may not be, alas. I know you do not mind it, Sherlock: your mind delights in the twists and turns, the intrigue and thrill of the chase, the knowledge that you possess knowledge that others do not. I understand that this is meat and drink for you. I even know it to be your solace, an anodyne for a mind that would, as you have said, flog itself to pieces if it were not occupied. And I know that thus engaged, you are safer from temptation. I see, God pardon me for the fault is all mine, that you still struggle against the craving for the drug. I would I had never led you to it: I shall always regret it.  But as for secrecy, I,’ he kissed my brow. ‘I would that there were no need for it all.’

‘As would I, my dear. And you must not blame yourself: we were both deceived as to the power of the drug. But I am afraid we must embrace secrecy, particularly in this work. For it occurs to me that ‘to ascend the heights of virtue’ is not the only meaning of the Moriarty motto. Another meaning of the noun ‘virtus’ is power. Perhaps it has never been virtue the professor aspires to. Perhaps it is the heights of power he covets, and always has done.’

*****

‘Watson, my dear fellow, pray brush your hat and change your attire: we are attending a concert this evening.’

‘Indeed? I was not aware we had an engagement for tonight. I thought we might peruse the Thousand and One Nights, with a glass of good claret. What is the occasion, and whence came the tickets?’

‘Oh,’ I told him, ‘it was not envisaged that we should be out, but this is too good an opportunity to miss.’ I waved the slips of pasteboard at him. ‘It is likely to be for the most part an anodyne affair – there is a new work by one of these modern composers to hear: a young man by the name of Oliver King. He is of Brahms’ school, a better composer for the piano than the violin, and quite imitative, I am certain. But we will have Wagner to solace us – the Prelude to Lohengrin, and then Schumann’s Symphony in B Flat, followed by Sir Arthur Sullivan himself conducting his incidental music to the Tempest.’

‘I am surprised it is enough to tempt you out on such a vile night.’ Watson shivered, and I saw him look longingly at the fire. ‘Must we indeed go?’

‘We must.’ I poured him a glass of sherry. ‘Drink this, my dear chap and do not abandon me to the adventure. For these tickets were delivered by a wretched urchin this afternoon, and no name was attached to them – there is no indication of the sender.’

‘Intriguing. So we are going to discover, if we can, who it is wishes you to attend their concert. Perhaps it is the composer, although why he should select us as recipients of his generosity, I have no idea.’

‘It is not the composer.’ I perched myself on the arm of his chair. ‘Make room there old fellow. I chanced to see the urchin disappearing off down the street – I was looking out for you, as it happened, for you are rather late, you know – and he was not familiar to me. I went downstairs to try if I might deduce anything about him, and was charmed to discover the marks of his boots upon our doorstep. The mud, Watson, the mud was most significant both in appearance and aroma.’

‘Was it?’ Watson sneezed, and I offered him my handkerchief. ‘I think I have a cold.’

‘It was. It was the self-same mud, my dear fellow, in which I crouched with my chisel painstakingly scraping a rat-hole into the back gate of Professor Moriarty’s house with two doors. I deduce, therefore, that the tickets were sent by the professor, and he has some reason for wishing us to attend tonight. So I beg that you will come with me – I shall lend you the scarf you bought me for Christmas: it is of the softest cashmere – and I promise that the concert once over we shall return promptly for a soothing glass of punch: I do not wish you to become chilled and feverish, of course.’

‘Are you sure that is wise?’ Watson sneezed again. ‘Of course I shall come with you, my dear Holmes: I would not abandon you for the world – but do not you find this gift, hard on the heels of your – incursion – rather too significant? It implies, does it not that he is aware of your interest in him? I do not like that. I do not like it at all.’

‘If we do not play his game, Watson, we cannot win.’

‘Alas, that may be true, but I still do not like it. Well, Holmes, we are partners in this as in all else. Give me a moment to change – I cannot go out to a concert in my dirt.’

‘You are the best of good fellows,’ I put my arm around his shoulders – it was still thrilling to me to initiate any caress, even the slightest  – and he leaned into my embrace. ‘Thank you, Watson. I do not know what I would do without you.’

The young composer’s work – a pretentious hash of themes borrowed and mangled beyond all bearing from other, more original, composers, was performed by a soloist who did his best with passages whose over-ornamented difficulty was not compensated for by the quality of the playing. Once it was over, Watson and I settled in to enjoy the rest of the concert. Scan the audience as I might, I could not see Professor Moriarty, but in the interval, a smartly dressed page delivered a note -  rather improbably scented with ambergris -  from him. He invited us to partake of a glass of wine and listen to the remainder of the concert in his box. Much against Watson’s will, we went upstairs together, to discover a box as unlike the others as might be: fine velvet, plentiful gilding, and a discreet screen to ensure privacy. Our host was alone. I cast an eye over his clothing and his broadcloth and cashmere merely reinforced my impression of a man with money to burn. He dressed well: all was understated, but of the finest tailoring.

‘This is very kind of you, Mr Holmes, very kind indeed.’ Professor Moriarty came forward, holding out a hand which when I shook it, reminded me disagreeably of a day-old corpse’s. Watson, I am convinced, also shuddered at his salutation, although he passed it off with a stifled sneeze, his cold increasing sadly upon him. ‘And Dr Watson: how delightful to see you again. Are you enjoying the concert? The young composer is a very dear protégé of mine: I am intrigued to know what you think of his work. The violinist also is quite a favourite. His fingering – ah, it is masterful - quite masterful, and I assure you his  - vibrato -  is exquisite. He is a singer, too: I have found none with greater oral expertise. I would be interested to know your opinion, Mr Holmes, as an – expert - in  - fingering - yourself.’ He turned, and poured wine into two glasses.

‘I think the work is somewhat derivative, I am sorry to say,’ I glanced at Watson, whose face, for some reason, had become completely expressionless, ‘although admirably performed. But you give me too much credit, Professor: I am no expert at the violin, but a mere amateur. I thank you for the invitation, however, despite your somewhat unorthodox way of delivering it, since it has enabled us to meet. It has been some time since we last encountered each other – also at a concert, I recall. I had no idea that you were a such a follower of the divine Euterpe.’

He chuckled and rubbed his hands together. ‘Well, you have smoked me out, Mr Holmes. Indeed, I daresay in my own way I am quite as -  musical -  as you yourself although it is to the Uranian muse that my highest devotion is paid. But I know you are no friend to the – orthodox - you see, and I hoped to intrigue you enough to obtain your presence. Although it was not really you I wanted of course: I believe you and I are – let us say planets – or perhaps asteroids, for I would not want to lay a  - hubristic – claim to any eminence you may ascribe to me – whose orbits should not meet. Were they to collide, heavens, what destruction might then ensue!.’

He handed me a glass. ‘Pray, Mr Holmes, drink. I believe you will find this pleasant. It is the golden wine of Mediasch in Transylvania – an unusual vintage, and leaves an agreeable sting upon the tongue. No, it was your companion,’ he bowed to Watson, ‘of whose company I was fain. And of course, where Mr Holmes goes, Dr Watson will always follow. You are seen about so much together, such good companions as you are. Six years you have shared rooms, have you not? Your devotion to each other is charming, quite charming.’ I was alarmed now, for there could be no mistaking his meaning. He held the other glass out for Watson to take.

‘You know, Doctor Watson, I was extremely sorry not to see you at my astronomy lectures: I quite thought you had promised to attend. Indeed I was certain of obtaining a new recruit to our admittedly somewhat esoteric field of study - heavenly bodies, my dear Doctor, such heavenly bodies: the worship, as I said, of the celestial Urania. Perhaps I could take this opportunity to persuade you once more to join our little band of like-minded comrades: we hope on Saturday next to investigate Ganymede, that noted satellite of Jupiter.’

Watson, his colour heightened, his back straight and his manner frigid, explained that he had been much pressed with work. Had little time for recreation.

‘And of course you do not like my honourable associate, Colonel Moran.’ The Professor smiled at him. ‘Well, I am sorry for that. Can I not persuade you, Doctor Watson, to give him another chance? He would be happy to reach an understanding with you - indeed he is willing to let bygones be bygones – has pressed me, in fact, to act as mediator, if an arrangement can by any means be reached between you. He expressed himself as more than ready to – bend over backwards, as the saying goes -  to accommodate you.’ He offered Watson the other glass again. Watson, even more flushed, waved it aside in a peremptory fashion.

‘Thank you, but I do not drink tonight. Holmes, as your physician I must recommend you do not drink either: you have not yet recovered from your digestive disturbance.’ He removed the glass from my hand (I had not had a digestive disturbance) and set it on the table. I had never heard Watson speak so coldly, save the occasion on which he offered the cut direct to Moran. ‘I regret, Professor, I cannot see my way to changing my views. You spoke of orbits just now: I believe mine and the Colonel’s should not coincide either. Was this in fact, the reason you invited us? To make me some kind of – dishonourable suggestion – a proposition, in fact?’

‘Not at all, my dear Doctor, I thought it to be an honourable offer of employment. Although I am sure I would be -  open -  to anything you suggested.’ The Professor glanced at me. ‘Mr Holmes? No, he does not interest me. What would I want with an amateur detective? It is your skills, Doctor Watson, that I am interested in. Colonel Moran speaks very highly of your – aim. You were a noted sharp-shooter, he informs me. Unparalleled. Renowned in the service – you did not know, Holmes? Well, it is amazing what a man will conceal from his nearest and dearest. Your dear, gentle Doctor Watson has killed his man on many an occasion, I assure you.’

‘I am aware of it, thank you.’ My heart was sinking within me: I had made an egregious error, for this man was more brazen and more dangerous than I had supposed. ‘Dr Watson is unparalleled in many respects.’

‘You flatter me, Professor, and so does Mr Holmes. As for my aim, I hope Colonel Moran may never have occasion to experience its accuracy himself. I am, however, no assassin for hire, if that is what you want. I served my time in the army. I am indeed skilled in arms, and yes, I killed in the course of duty. I took no joy in it, and I will kill no more. I am a healer, and shall remain one. Perhaps it may atone.’

‘How touching.’ The Professor poured the glass Watson had rejected into a slop-bowl. ‘You disappoint me, Doctor. I thought you were of – commoner clay, shall we say – given your friend there. He does so enjoy grovelling in the mud.’

‘I do not think we have anything more to say to each other, Professor.’ Watson took my arm. He was white now with rage: I had never seen him so before. ‘I trust we will not meet again. I cannot be bought, Sir, no matter what you are offering. I like neither your manners nor your morals nor your associates. Holmes, I believe we can dispense with the remainder of this exceptionally mediocre concert, do not you?’

‘I shall regret the Lohengrin,’ I told him, ‘But nothing else.’

‘I shall endeavour to make sure that you have other regrets.’ The professor spoke so quietly that it took me a moment to realise that he too was in a towering rage. ‘Count upon it, Mr Holmes, Doctor Watson. Oh yes, I am sure you will have cause to regret your answer, gentlemen. Especially you, Mr Holmes.’

I thought Watson was going to strike the man then for he started forward, but I plucked him by the sleeve, and forced him to follow me without more ado. When we were out of the concert hall, I hailed a cab. He handed me into it as was his wont and then told the cabbie to drive to Baker Street.

‘Go home,’ he said. He had never used such a tone to me before. ‘Go home. I am no fit company for anyone: forgive me. I must walk it off. God’s my life, he has put me in such a rage. I must walk.’

‘When will . . .’

‘I will return.’ He glanced quickly at the oblivious cabbie who was adjusting some strap or other. ‘I will – I will return quite - very shortly, my dear Sherlock. But I cannot now – let me – I will return, just let me walk – my God, that foul, foul man. Go home. I will return, I promise.’

I let him go – there was no holding him in that mood. As I took my solitary way towards Baker Street, my mind was in a turmoil. Moriarty’s insults to me mattered nothing; I did not court his good opinion. But Watson – that he should try to suborn Watson – that I had not expected. His threats had been clear; the references to us living together, the emphasis upon our friendship – we had been warned. And I – I had miscalculated: hubris, and the thrill of discovery had led me to underestimate my opponent. I had thought to have some time before he realised my interest in him, but it appeared his web was spun more widely than I thought. Certainly his use of an urchin to deliver the tickets – a boy similar to my own band of Irregulars – should have told me that within my own network might lurk another. Should have told me? No, rather, it had been intended to tell me.

It was the small hours of the morning before Watson returned home. I had been watching for him, and stole down to let him in without waking the women. He was grey with fatigue, dragged himself up our stairs, and fell into an armchair without removing his coat. I did not speak to him – he had said nothing to me when he arrived, only looked his anguish – but when I handed him a glass of brandy I saw that his knuckles were bruised and bleeding. I ran a finger over them, and he shook his head.

‘I fought no-one. It was a tree I hit: an oak, possibly. I was so angry, could not think. I went to Primrose Hill that there might be none to hear my curses. Oh God - ’ he fetched a deep sigh, ‘Sherlock, my dear, my very dear. Primrose Hill: where first we walked together.’

‘This is my fault.’ I stooped to unlace his shoes. ‘I have behaved very foolishly indeed. Take these off, your feet are soaked. And your socks, my dear fellow. Here, put your slippers on; let me help.’ I had kept the fire in, and the room was comfortably warm. ‘And give me your coat; take your dressing gown.’

‘I am sorry I left you for so long. My leg hurts most damnably. I must have walked miles, tramped and tramped around this damn city.’ He slipped off his drenched coat and stood there holding it as if he had no idea what to do with it. I took it from him and laid it aside. He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Sherlock.’

‘I miscalculated,’ I said to him, quickly. ‘I am sorry, John. I was foolish, and I should have realised. He is far more dangerous than we thought, to divine my ruse – for clearly he has – and to retaliate so swiftly.’

‘Yes.’ He closed his eyes. I saw that he was shaking, helped him on with his dressing gown, and put my arms around him. For a moment he just stood there, and then he softened into my embrace. ‘You were foolish, but it is no matter. We will go more carefully to work now, and, Sherlock, we will win. It is not that.’

‘What then?’ I coaxed his head to my shoulder. ‘Rest on me, John; let me hold you. Or let us sit down for God’s sake, for you are trembling.’

‘In a minute.’ He drew a breath. ‘I want to tell you – how Sebastian Moran knows that I am a crack shot. Before Maiwand, before I got mine, and nearly died, there was a sortie against the Afghans at Helmand. Shere Ali’s Kandahar troops, who were meant to be fighting with ours had deserted – they had been levied to fight against their own countrymen, and had no stomach for that fight -  so our damn Brigadier General, Burrows, went after them for punishment. I was under his command with the 66th Berkshires, as I told you, having been seconded from my own regiment, the Northumberland. Moran was commanding the 3rd Bombay Cavalry.’ He sighed, shivered, sneezed. ‘Perhaps I had better sit down after all. I feel ill.’

‘Yes.’ I led him to the sofa. ‘Go on, John, I am listening.’

‘The punishment meted out to the captured troops was severe – flogging - hundreds of lashes given out at the whim of whatever officer caught the deserted troops. Burrows’ men, Moran’s men were everywhere, savage among savages, and their commanders encouraging them to flay the wretched deserters within an inch of their lives. Then Moran came across a group of Ghazis – they are religious men, you know: devils when they fight. He had such a hatred of them, you cannot think, he always despised the natives, even when he commanded them, and how much more so did he hate these, who had deserted. He decided to make an example of them.’

He swallowed. ‘Oh, this is a foul tale. Let me make an end. He had them flogged, rubbed salt and dung into their wounds, and had them tied hand and foot, exposed to the sun, to die of thirst. When I saw them it was by pure chance, returning from tending the wounds of one of our interpreters, for Moran’s deed had been done away from the camp, to gratify his private lust for killing. They had been out there for two days. Their eyes had sunk into their heads, their tongues were blackened already, lolling out of their mouths; their wounds fly-blown and putrefying. There were guards posted there to observe their suffering, and to see that none might intervene. There was no saving them, I could see when I examined them, but I wanted at least to make their last hours less of a torment, to show them some humanity, for the poor wretches had only refused to fight their own, and who could fault them that loyalty? I ordered the guards to help me to untie them and take them to the hospital: they would not, but threatened me.’

I held him closer. His shivers intensified.

‘The guards told me it was Moran who had ordered this. Burrows, my own commander was not there: Moran was the senior officer in our camp. I went to him and remonstrated, put it to him that his act was beyond all punishment, that it was, in fact a vengeance outside all the uses of war, an extreme and horrible cruelty. He forbade any intervention: he was senior to me, he said, and I was to do nothing. There was already bad blood between us at that point, after I had patched up a young man he had ruined with his vile attentions. I argued, insisted. He laughed in my face, turned me off with curses and insults, and went out to look on his work. I followed. I could not bear his laughter, Holmes, nor their moaning. There were five of them, and I had my Webley. I shot each man, quickly, quickly, before he could stop me – a mercy shot – a killing shot, from some distance, between the eyes. It was all I could do for them, to put them out of their torture.’ He sobbed, harsh and sudden. ‘I had never killed in such a way before – I, a doctor to kill so!’

‘My dear fellow. John, my poor friend, I am so sorry.’ I did not know what to say.

‘There were consequences, of course. I was reprimanded for insubordination to a senior officer, but not seriously: Moran was in grave trouble over it with Burrows; he was not liked, had shown signs of ungovernable fury before, and indeed, had not Maiwand ensued, might well have been broke from the army. But after the battle, I was in no state to bear witness at any court martial, and Moran left the Indian service of his own accord and returned home. He might not have been broke, in any case: they were Ghazis, of course: they might expect no justice from us. After Maiwand I was out of my head with fever for many days. In the aftermath of all that, I forgot one horror among so many, and it was not until later the vision came back to me, in dreams I knew to be reality, as one does. So yes, he knows I am a crack shot. He has seen me kill. But to think, to suggest I might join myself to his foul purposes . . . my God, had you not taken me by the sleeve, I would have struck Moriarty then and there, for his offer on behalf of Moran, and for his insinuations before.’

‘He has some fascination with you, I think.’ My mind was working now. This was the third time Moran had tried to inveigle Watson into his orbit. ‘First he approached you at the opera, when you gave him the cut direct. And now, twice, through Professor Moriarty. Is it vengeance he wants, or – something else? For he must know that you would never join him, so opposed in all your ways as you are.’

‘I think he hates me, and would willingly bring me to destruction. If he offers anything he will poison it - I am under no illusions about that. And Professor Moriarty hates you, Holmes. To imply that you – that you were less than I! My God, I could have murdered him for his insults! The Uranian muse! Fingering! Heavenly bodies! Ganymede! I would have stuffed his words back down his filthy throat, had you not recalled me to myself. Damn him! Damn him!’ He looked at me. ‘Those words, those insults to you! And you do not in the least realise what he blackguarded you with, do you, Holmes?’

I rocked him in my arms to calm him a little. ‘I believe he intended some insult, but since I was unaware of the exact meaning behind his words, it did not much bother me. I assumed he was talking about music and astronomy, did not you? Although it appears that both the composer and the violinist might be – attached - to him. A patron-client relationship, as in Ancient Rome do you not think? I own I never suspected him of generosity or of being a supporter of the Arts. I expect it is part of his façade – to be a respectable man. He probably contributes to charities too.’

He choked out a laugh - angry, sardonic. ‘Urania is the muse of astronomy, yes. A Uranian is an invert, as you know. Fingering is – well, it is a – a sexual practice between men – and – and between men and women of course. I do not expect you have heard of it, but in the course of my professional career,’ he coughed, and a deeper flush burned on his cheek – ‘ I have occasionally had to ask – pertinent – questions. Ganymede, if you remember your mythology, was the minion, or lover, of Jupiter. He implied that you were an invert, Holmes, and that I was, and that we were together, had been together in that kind, for six years.’

‘I understood him to be making a threat, and that precise threat. The specific content of the insult – of which, you are quite correct, I was unaware -  is pointed, but what of it? If you are concerned about our words being overheard, it was a private altercation, and our voices were low. He may insinuate as much as he likes – we work with Scotland Yard, which must surely protect us.’

‘Perhaps.’ He looked at me, his blue eyes sombre. ‘Who knows?’

‘You are tired, and the world looks grey to you. We have not begun to fight yet, Watson. Yes, I underestimated the speed with which he retaliated: it is clear he has ways and means of finding things out that I did not expect. I know now, and shall not be so careless again. And we are clear of all imputation of evil: no-one would believe him if he said anything. Trust me, it will come right. We shall win.’

‘Perhaps.’ He yawned. ‘I am so weary. Forspent, and – and despondent and – in the aftermath of my anger, there is always shame, shame for my lack of control. Poor unoffending, innocent oak, what had it done to me that I should punish it? Well, I am served my own back again for that. My hand is bruised, and, alas this damn leg is all ache, ache, ache and no respite. _How goes the night, Holmes_?’

‘ _Almost at odds with morning which is which_.’ I gave him back his quote. ‘Come and lie down in my room, my dearest John; the stairs will be too much for you with that strain you have put on yourself. Tonight, I shall heat a towel at the fire, you may wrap your leg with it for comfort, and we will rest it with pillows so there is no pull on it. When you have slept, we will take counsel, and decide on our campaign. And tomorrow we will go to the Turkish Bath, that you may be supple once more, and at ease. And we shall – we shall, I promise you, live to fight many days yet.’

‘Will we? I augur ill of this night’s work. Will you sleep? Be with me, Sherlock. I – I do not want to be alone tonight. I – I can see them, again, those poor men. Be with me. ’

‘I will not sleep: the night is too far gone, my mind races, and I have much to plan. I shall sit by you while you sleep though, and then we will be together.’ I stroked his cheek. ‘I want to be with you, my dear.’

‘I wish we were always together.’ He rose, bent to kiss my brow, and limped towards my bedroom door. ‘My dearest friend. Thank you. I wish we were far away from here, in some quiet haven, with no evil around us.’

‘So do I sometimes.’ I gathered my commonplace book and a pen, and followed him. ‘But this is also your fatigue speaking, John. Allow me to care for you now, my dear fellow, to help you to rest, and you will see things differently in the morning and be ready to take up the task again.’ _Perhaps,_ I thought to myself _. It is possible. But I fear I have changed our lives, and not for the better. John, John, I am so sorry. You may forgive me, but I have been a fool, and shall not forgive myself._

*****

For some days after that Watson was unwell. His cold kept him awake, and whenever he did sleep, his nightmares returned. I woke him for several nights, calling him back to himself, playing Lieder to send him back into gentler dreams. He spent those nights in my bed, where I could watch over him. When the nightmares diminished, he developed a hacking cough that broke his sleep even more.

We heard nothing more from Moriarty and nothing from Moran. I spoke to the Irregulars, discovering that alongside my small network of street waifs, there was another: the boys who assisted in burglaries, being sent to crawl through smaller windows than gave ingress for a fully grown man. They appeared to have no lair -  but the house with two doors was known to them, and spoken of not just with respect, but fear. I was careful in my investigations, so as not to put my own children in danger, and discovered that it was Worth who recruited this pack of juveniles, and lent them to his principal as spies. I found no evidence that Worth’s boys had infiltrated my network, but I began to have concerns about the safety of my children.

And then came the French affair. ‘Baron Maupertuis and the Netherland-Sumatra Company’ is how Watson immortalised it when he wrote of it, although I would have thought it would be plain to the dullest of his readers that had I been dealing only with the Netherlands, I would never have ended up even in fiction in a hotel in Lyons. He used the spurious title as a cover for my real activities, which were, to put it bluntly, investigating those agents of foreign governments who were fomenting dissension between France and Germany along the Alsace-Lorraine border, and blaming the resultant chaos and warmongering on England and the English press.

Nor was I, in fact, quartered at Lyons for the two long and tedious months that I was absent. Although it is a delightful city, it is as far removed from the centre of French politics as Kathmandu. I visited it, true, but only briefly to enquire into the actions of two suspected Prussian spies, the _soi-disant_ “Audenaz Sydney” and “Charles Wolitz”, both supposed to be London-born, to determine whether they were in fact, as English by birth as they claimed to be, despite their names. For the most part I was working from Paris of course, dealing with the bureaucracies of three countries, and when not in Paris, I was travelling the dusty roads from the capital to Metz and the surrounding area. But it was at a place called Lyons – Lyons-la-Forêt, a little village in Normandy – where I had finally given up on making my laborious and unsteady way back to Le Havre and the boat to England, that my dear Watson found me, in a state, as he said, of the blackest depression.

I had not done well without him. I had not wanted to go to France without him, not at all. He had not wanted me to go. But he, some days after our experience with Professor Moriarty, and while he was still recovering from his severe cold, had received an urgent summons from an old army friend of his, a Colonel Hayter, who had been under his care in Afghanistan. Hayter lived much retired and alone – he was a confirmed bachelor, Watson told me - in a small house in Reigate. He had been wounded in the leg, a dirty wound from which Watson and his colleagues had not been able to remove all the metal. From time to time, one of these pieces would move, causing him agonising pains as it exacerbated the damaged nerves. Watson’s old friend clearly needed not only his medical expertise, but his knowledge of this particular wound. Moreover it seemed to me that Watson would benefit from the cleaner air outside London. the place was within a day’s journey, and so I encouraged him to go, promising to join him when his friend was recovered a little.

No sooner had he departed ( I made him promise to telegraph his arrival) than I was summoned peremptorily by Mycroft, whom I met at the Diogenes. He was accompanied by the Premier and the newly appointed Secretary of State for War, Edward Stanhope. The political situation, they said to me, bluntly, was difficult: war was being talked of in all the papers, war between England and France over Egypt, war between France and Germany over border disputes in Alsace and Lorraine, war between Germany and Russia over the Balkans, war between Russia and England over Bulgaria and Turkey. I had, it appeared, made the cardinal error of covering myself in glory in the affair of Trelawney Hope – and here the Premier cocked a quizzical eyebrow at me, saying ‘and I know there was more to it than you told me, Mr Holmes, but I do not much care since we came out of it intact’ – and now my services were required again, ‘for you may go quietly to work, as our known diplomats cannot, and your discretion we know we may completely rely on.’

I demurred. I attempted to decline, but it was impossible. I could not explain to Mycroft, let alone to the Premier and a Secretary of State, that my heart was inextricably knotted to a similar organ in the breast of a certain doctor, and that I did not want to leave him. Men everywhere laid down their lives in the service of their country: even when they did not die for it, they suffered separation and heartbreak for it. Who was I with my illegitimate affections to claim any exemption from the common fate of my countrymen, or to be regarded as other than a tool to be used?

I said as much, with some bitterness, to Mycroft, when the Premier and Stanhope had left. They had expressed themselves delighted by my compliance and promised documents and gold to be delivered to my house that very day. ’As if I wanted their gold. If a man must be bought, he is not worth the buying. But they do not see it.’

‘You would do well to be thankful that you are given the opportunity to be useful to your country,’ he replied. ‘God knows I strive with all my might to be so. There is no safety for us, Sherlock, other than that which we can purchase by being of use to the Establishment. Moreover, you are treading on dangerous ground: what were you about playing a fool’s game with Professor Moriarty?’ – for I had told him, of course, of all my discoveries.

‘He is unassailable,’ he went on, ‘a reputable professor with an unimpeachable background – two universities – Durham and London, a tenured position, papers to his name, a patron of the arts and a contributor to the Royal Society. You, on the other hand, if enquiries are made, are a consorter with lowly folk, with criminals, a man of over thirty pursuing no recognised avocation. You are unmarried, living in rented rooms with an army doctor friend. You are of dubious means and morals because of your associations with the Yard – Lestrade is a good man, but it is not his influence will save you – and your associations with the criminal world. If the Premier chooses to shed the light of his countenance upon you, it will, should Professor Moriarty attempt to cause trouble, balance the scales that at present are weighed too heavily against you.’,

’Do you think he will? Cause trouble?’

‘I do not know. I believe, Sherlock, that with your customary acuity you have correctly identified him as a threat. I am inclined to believe you: all falls too pat for him not to be the person we seek. But not many will believe you. We need time, we need evidence, we need irrefutable links – and you need to be careful. For you to be in France for the next month or so will be the very thing to avert suspicion: your attempt against him can be seen as an isolated sortie, not the beginning of a concerted campaign to destroy the enterprise – the criminal enterprise – we believe him to be engaged in with these others.’

‘A month or so!’

‘I expect it will be so, I am afraid. You must go to Lyons first, to enquire into these supposedly English spies who have allegedly been sent by the Prussians to enquire into the new rifles supplied to the French army. Then to Paris, to investigate these reports of warlike actions by the French and Germans along the border, and to discover, if you can, who it is that is sending these inflammatory reports to the English press so that we appear to be fomenting discord between the Powers. But as for Professor Moriarty – I do believe you, Sherlock, and trust, as I said, your acuity of vision - we know little of his background before Durham. I shall set some enquiries afoot in your absence – and before you ask me, my dear brother, I shall keep a watchful eye out for your Watson. I know he is dear to you.’

‘Yes,’ I could say no more, but turned to the window and looked out to conceal an emotion that would make itself felt. Mycroft came to join me and, wonder of wonders, patted me rather tentatively on the shoulder.

‘I am sorry,’ he said, quietly. ‘I too wish you did not have to go. But it is useful, and will increase your credit with the Government, and that may, if the worst comes to the worst, provide a measure of protection. And of course you will succeed.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘I have always thought so, Sherlock. I have always had the highest opinion of your powers since first we met. And you have always succeeded. You will do so again, I am sure of it.’

*****

‘Two months,’ I said to him. ‘John, John, I have wanted you so.’

‘Hush,’ he stroked my hair, ‘hush, I am here now, my dear Sherlock. I am sorry I could not come before. I am so sorry. If I had known you were like this - ’

‘I was not, until a week or so ago. The work though - it has never been less than fifteen hours a day, and more than once I have had to keep at it for four or five days at a stretch. But I did succeed. Mycroft told me I would, and I have. I thought it would not be possible, but we will not come to war, and the spies are safely put away.’

‘And in putting them away, you worked yourself to a standstill without sparing yourself at all, and now you are in a state of collapse. Yes, you have succeeded. Europe is ringing with your name, my dear fellow. And half of this squalid and disgraceful clutter is eulogies and congratulatory telegrams, I see. But as for the price . . . I have never seen you reduced like this, nor this far gone in self-neglect. Holmes, are you aware how long I have been here with you? I thought you had gone so very deep into your silence that you would never speak to me.’

‘Have you not just arrived? I was not aware - ’

‘I have been here since dawn yesterday, my dear. But I am afraid you were quite – elevated -  and did not know, and then you fell into such a deep sleep that at one point I – I rather despaired of rousing you. How much did you take?’ He turned my arm over, inspecting it, stroking here and there, pressing the veins lightly. ‘Was it just cocaine, Holmes? Or morphine as well?’

‘I needed not to sleep – there was too much to be done – so cocaine, yes – and then I wanted to sleep, and could not, and morphine was my only hope. There were people listening, spying on me all the time, eyes in the dark, voices in my ears, and my veins running fire. Do not be angry, Watson.’

‘I am not angry.’ He bent his head and I felt the lightest brush of his lips against my needle scars. ‘I am only so sorry, so very sorry, my dear. And what is this?’ His fingers stroked tenderly over my brow, smoothing my hair. ‘What did you do here?’

‘I cut it. It was in my way; it was too long, much too long. It annoyed me.’

‘I can see. Was it a knife you used, old chap? It looks as if it has been chewed by rats, to be perfectly honest; there is a tuft sticking up here, and one there, and here too - ’ he indicated them with one finger. He looked so sad that tears rose to my own eyes and I bent my head to his shoulder to hide my face. ‘There, do not weep, my poor friend. It will grow again.’

‘I cannot remember, only that I hacked at it in a fit of disgust. John – I – I have missed you. I know you wrote, and I wrote; I know that you know what I have done these past months, and I know how you have fared – I am glad your operation on your poor Colonel was successful, by the way - and we telegraphed, but it was not enough – and – and – I could not tell you all.’

‘I felt your absence like a rift in my heart.’ I felt him touch his lips to my hair. ‘I – I do not know what to say to you to express it. Why did you not tell me you were so overstrained, Sherlock? I would have left Hayter and come to you: of course you would always have precedence. Was it the drugs? You thought I would be angry?’

‘You do not like me to take them, John, and you blame yourself so. But I do not believe I could have succeeded without: it was so complex an affair - telegrams here and there, and in three languages – and papers missing and sold, and discovered, and it was so important for the country. For us. For our credit, against Moriarty. So I did not tell you, for fear that you might bid me stop.’

‘Whatever it is, you must still tell me.’ He caressed my cheek. ‘Do not keep it from me. Please. I – care for you so much, my dear. Please do not shut me out.’

He set about helping me then, for I had not washed for some days, had not changed my clothes, had not eaten. He was gentle as a mother tending her babe, and I loved him for it more dearly than ever. But those words we had exchanged when I first realised he was with me were the limit of my ability. It was the following morning before I was able to summon the energy to speak again, begging that we might go home, go back to Baker Street. ‘But I do not know how I will stand the journey  – I – cannot _think_ , John, only that I want to go home.’

‘It is all in hand,’ he said. ‘I was not sure how I was to travel with you in this state – the common stage would be out of the question -  but a telegram came last night to say that a closed carriage would be at our disposal: as for the boat, we will be returning the same way I came out, in the yacht in which the Premier sent me over to you when we received news of your plight. But need you stand the journey quite yet, Holmes? We may take our time you know: we do not have to travel until you are recovered a little.’

‘Now. I want to go now. I cannot stand it here a moment longer. I want to go home.’

‘Then we shall. I shall order the carriage for noon: can you be ready?

‘I must. John, why is it so bad this time? I feel – as if I will fly all to pieces – or - or contract around my centre like a burning star, and then explode – and, and when it is not like that, it is as if I am in the depths of Hell - or rather not Hell, Hades, for Hell is at least hot, and it is Stygian gloom and cold I wander in. I have no strength to walk, but I am so restless I cannot bear to be still. I am hot and cold, and my skin – if I could shed it like a snake, perhaps I could be happy, for it feels too tight all over me.’

He sat beside me on the sofa and took me into his arms. ‘This is not just the nervous exhaustion from the work you have done; it is the black sadness after the exhilaration of cocaine, and the physical sequelae of taking the drug. These things have combined, I am afraid, hence this deep depression of your spirits, and your bodily discomfort.’

‘Am I ill then?’

‘You are suffering from nervous exhaustion, and from the after-effects of an exceedingly powerful drug. The latter will diminish after a few days, and the former – well, we shall have to be careful. Your nervous system, more than any I have ever known, is organised with an exquisite fineness and sensitivity, yet you treat it as if it has been hammered together with rough-sawn planks and will stand any brute treatment. You abuse your body by act – the drugs – and by neglect. When, and what, did you last eat, other than the soup I made you take last night?’

‘I cannot remember. I have not been hungry: you know I am not when I am working. I cannot spare the nerve force to digest, in any case. Oh, I see what you are saying – I understand. I am sorry, Watson, sorry that I am such a burden to you.’

‘My dear fellow, now you are falling into self-pity: do not do so.’ He sat on the bed, swung up his legs so he reclined next to me, and drew me into his arms. ‘Lie quiet here for thirty minutes. Do not speak, do not think, do nothing. Lay your fingers here, on my pulse, and count its beats. Your heart is galloping – let it rest a little, make it mirror the pace of mine. No more recriminations, Sherlock, and no more worrying. After you have rested I shall pack while you eat a boiled egg and drink a glass of milk. And then, Sherlock, we shall go home.’

*****

Watson had come to me on the fourteenth; by the seventeenth of April, after a rough crossing punctuated by sudden squally showers, we were back in Baker Street. I lay prostrate for two days, prey to the most shocking headache, nausea and palpitations I had ever experienced, eating nothing, speaking little, a cloth wetted with lavender water over my throbbing eyes. Watson was constantly by my side; all I had to do was to turn my head, whisper his name and he was there, tending to my needs, offering water or soup or ice. On the twentieth he told me that the Premier had called to see me but hearing that I was not well, had gone away again.

‘It is something to have the Prime Minister dancing attendance on you,’ he said, drawing the cloth across my brow. ‘But you can see him another time. Your brother also has sent messengers thrice daily, and I have taken the liberty of writing to him. I have not told him everything, of course - ’ and he touched my hand softly, soothing me, for he must have felt my sudden quiver, and seen my frown. ‘Of course I have not. It is your business after all. I merely told him when we returned that you are much reduced, and must rest, take wholesome amusement, and eat well. Whereupon he sent the excellent claret you have tasted, a pair of fowl, great jorums of beef tea made in his own kitchens, a pile of periodicals you might be interested in, and tickets to several musical events over the next week. He cares for you a great deal, I think, Sherlock – you are fortunate. Although I think too that he is suffering some guilt because he did not expect that the task would be quite so onerous. He expressed himself very justly – ah, where is the note? Yes, I have it here: he praises your ability and tenacity, apologises for the price you have paid for success and then says ‘My brother has many good parts; he is a man of decided ability, and might go much further in this field if he chooses.’ It seems he would like you to be a diplomat, Sherlock, my dear.’

‘Well I would not like it. I am not interested in diplomacy. Nor am I interested in the periodicals – you may use them to light the fire if you do not wish to read them – and I am sick of being stuffed with beef tea and fowl. But music – if he has sent concert tickets, I would like to see what they are. I have not heard good music for two months, and I miss it sorely.’

‘I will find them for you.’ He kissed my brow. ‘If you feel you could bear the crowds and the light and noise, it might be the very thing to brighten up your spirits a little. And we need not stay for the whole performance if you find yourself overset.’

‘Yes,’ I said. I looked at him as he stood there, soft in dressing gown and slippers, his cuffs and collar off his shirt, and his trousers unbraced. The firelight set an aureole around his hair, haloed him like some saint as he looked at me. ‘John – you take such good care of me always. You are so patient. So kind.’

He smiled, and knelt by me, taking my hand and patting it gently. ‘It is not difficult to be patient with those we love, my dear fellow. I am here to be of use. You know it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.’

‘I do know.’ I touched his cheek, and our eyes met for a long moment. Then he sighed and stood, wincing a little. ‘What is it, John?’

‘My leg is complaining, that is all. I shall go and find the tickets for you, and we shall choose a performance.’ At the door he turned, and looked at me with the same serious gaze. ‘We have all the time in the world, Sherlock, do not fret. We have all the time in the world - when you are quite well again.’

Two nights after that found us at Covent Garden. The piece given was ‘Leila’ a twenty year old work by the composer Bizet, more renowned for his Carmen than for this, which had proved unpopular. The subject of the opera, which was new to me, struck me with unexpected force: with what turmoil in my breast, with what sudden upwelling of passion in my heart did I hear the duet in the first act between the two friends and rivals! The tenor, Nadir, recalls how he has sworn eternal friendship to Zurga, renouncing the priestess, Leila who had nearly come between them to wreck their passionate love for each other. Zurga reiterates his vow to cherish his friend as a brother; embracing, the two swear that they will remain united until death. After a lapse of some years, Leila reappears; Nadir betrays his friend and his vow and pursues her. Zurga is enraged by his beloved friend’s treachery, and denounces the pair. Both are condemned to die, for Nadir has committed sacrilege: Leila is a priestess, sworn not to marry. Then Zurga repents – _‘l’orage, c’est calm_ _é’_ : the storm is over. He remembers _‘Nadir, tendre ami de mon jeune âge!’_ and vows that he will right the wrong he has done to his friend. He arranges their escape, and dies defending them, sacrificing himself nobly for their freedom and happiness.

I was grateful for the shelter of our box, for my tears, weak and low as I was then, flowed freely under the stimulus of the music, and could not be restrained. Watson was also affected: his hand crushed mine mercilessly during the duet _‘Au fond du temple saint’_ between the two men. At intervals he too made discreet use of a handkerchief, and at Zurga’s death a harsh sob shook him. We left as soon as we could, ignoring the ballet attached to the opera (which had unaccountably been placed after the ending instead of between the second and third acts). Unfortunately, there were many who did the same: before we reached the exit the crowds in the foyer, the noise, the lights, began to irritate me almost to madness, my head spinning, and lights flickering in my vision. I urged Watson to hurry. He took my arm and almost dragged me into the street; I followed, desperate, and panting until I was forced to beg him to stop. To wait, to let me draw breath.

‘I am sorry,’ he halted under a lamp, and examined my face, took my pulse. ‘Yes, I should not have bustled you along like that and you barely out of your bedchamber. Forgive me my dear – it is only – I wanted to say to you – oh Holmes, Holmes -  the aria - those words!’

‘ _Que rien ne nous sépare!_ ’ I said, clasping his hand. ‘Let nothing separate us, John!’

‘ _Non, rien._ _Jurons de rester amis!_ ’ He returned my grip. ‘Swear you will be my friend.’

‘I swear. _Et fidèle à ma promesse comme un frère je veux te chérir_! Was that how it went? Faithful to my vow: I will cherish you, my brother, my friend, my more than all!’

He turned me to face him, took both my hands in his. ‘ _Oui, partageons le même sort,  
Soyons unis jusqu'à la mort_. Will you, Sherlock? Will you let me, let us, share the same fate, united until death?’

‘I will.’ I could not look away from him, could not tear my eyes from his beloved face, from the blue gaze that searched my heart to its core. ‘John, _tendre ami_ , oui, jusqu’ a la mort. _Je te promets_. I vow.’

For a long moment we stayed thus hand-clasped. It was I who recovered first, my physical discomfort dragging me down from the emotional height, my more sober head reminding my unruly heart that our exchange, brief as it had been, was all too telling, was unmistakeable. And John – with what sharp agony did I see the love-light fade from his eyes, watch as he understood what we had said to each other, wince as he glanced around, hasty, almost furtive, to see if we had been observed or overheard. With what agony, alas, did I feel the cold absence of his hands as they reluctantly slipped from mine.

‘Come,’  I said to him, my heart constricting within me ‘Come, take my arm, we must walk. We are safe, I think but we must not . . .’

‘No.’ He straightened his shoulders. ‘Oh God, I can’t – Oh God, Holmes, forgive me. I must have been – quite outside, beyond myself. Here in the public street -  in sight of all who might pass: what was I thinking of! I am so sorry.’

‘There is no harm done.’ I set us in motion, a hand to the small of his back. ‘Come, let us go home. Quickly, let us go home.’

‘Yes.’ His hand shook, as he took mine to draw it within my arm. ‘Yes. I am sorry.’

We had gone only a little way -  I still shaking, he silent, tense, oppressed -  when I turned, the back of my neck prickling. Standing under the street lamp we had just quitted was a silent figure, watching. The bullet head, the silhouette were unmistakeable: Labouchère. I had seen him at the opera with a group of friends; he and Watson had acknowledged each other, but otherwise we had paid him no attention, for the man did not interest me in the slightest. There was no reason, I would have thought that I – or we – interested him. But it appeared, as he stood there, that we did.

‘Holmes!’ It was a murmur, and my arm was pressed, grasped more tightly. ‘Walk on, walk quickly. Don’t look at him.’

I had thought he meant Labouchère, but he did not. Approaching us was Professor Moriarty. He passed at a smooth, swift, gliding pace -  did not acknowledge us even by so much as a glance. As we turned the corner, I saw him stop under the lamp, raise his hat, and greet Labouchère, who put out a hand to his.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the people to whom Mycroft sends telegrams were in post at the legations at the times Holmes was travelling home.
> 
> Cholera, a diarrhoeal disease that killed from acute dehydration, was a perennial scourge in the 19th Century. Ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae gives symptoms of the disease within a period between a few hours, and 5 days. If untreated, the death rate can be as high as 50%. Despite the fact that it can be treated with simple oral rehydration, there are still thousands of deaths from the disease each year. At the time Holmes fell ill, the link between cholera and poor hygiene had been understood since John Snow’s research in the great London epidemic of 1849 and 1854. In 1855 and thereafter, attempts were also being made – unsuccessfully – to vaccinate against it with a live vaccine, produced by Spanish physician Jaime Ferrán, who studied under Koch’s (Koch had discovered the cholera bacillus) rival Louis Pasteur, He did so after cultivating Vibrio cholerae and working with the live germs., which often killed instead of cured. Between 1882 and 1885, Sydney Ringer was developing the rehydration fluid that would later be used as supportive therapy. If it was cholera Holmes had, and not giardiasis or a similar diarrhoeal disease, he was lucky that he was given a home-spun remedy that quite coincidentally contained salt and sugar. Plain water would not have helped him.
> 
> At this point in 1893, there was also cholera in England – including, as Mycroft says, a fatal case in a cleaner in the House of Commons.
> 
> “He is to work there with Dr Joseph Bell, and Dr Henry Littlejohn upon this recent strange murder at Ardlamont,” A link to the Ardlamont murder can be found here: http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/30th-december-1893/12/the-ardlamont-mystery-t-he-ardlamont-trial-is-a-sh. Joseph Bell, is, of course, one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s models for Holmes. I thought Watson might enjoy working with him.
> 
> The Wilde Trials were rooted much further back than people suppose. ‘Poor gentle Drumlanrig’ shot himself in 1894, after his affair with Rosebery caused trouble with his father, and political trouble for Rosebery.
> 
> Dr Sophia Jex Blake did, in fact, receive help from a Dr Watson – but it was Dr Patrick Heron Watson, who was an army surgeon in the Crimea, and with the Royal Artillery, and taught Arthur Conan Doyle at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Like his namesake, Dr John Watson, he was a staunch supporter of women in medicine. https://www.ed.ac.uk/alumni/services/notable-alumni/alumni-in-history/patrick-heron-watson 
> 
> A translation of Plato’s Symposium with Aristophanes’ version of the myth can be found here : http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html 
> 
> I spent hours looking at the digitised books from the Advocates’ Library – it is a most fascinating place. The comparative linguistics also took ages, even though I’ve been setting this up for some time now. Remember Bishop Moriarty . . . he is related to the Professor.
> 
> Sukey was my Grandfather’s Jack Russell Terrier. She was indeed a very pretty little animal and a ferocious ratter.
> 
> The Professor’s furniture would really all have been extremely expensive. Doyle is using the ‘Jeune Fille a l’Agneau as a coded reference to Worth’s real like theft of the Gainsborough portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire, but the painting by Greuze does in fact exist.
> 
> At the concert Holmes and Watson attend at Moriarty’s invitation, Moriarty’s speech is coded. Euterpe, is the Muse of Music, Urania the Muse of Astronomy. But a ‘Uranian’ is a homosexual, and ‘musical’ is a covert description of a homosexual too. Ganymede is a satellite of the planet Jupiter, named for the ‘father of the gods’, but ‘a Ganymede’ is a young man who might now be referred to pejoratively as a twink.
> 
> Both the concert to which Holmes is given tickets by Moriarty, and the opera, Leila, to which he and Watson go when he returns from France took place on the dates on which Holmes and Watson attend them. Leila is now known as ‘The Pearl Fishers. There are many renditions by famous singers of the Act 1 duet between Nadir and Zurga, but my favourite is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2MwnHpLV48 
> 
> The ‘War Scare’ that sends Holmes to France was real, and as serious as stated. The spies in Lyons were real – but not very clever! As for Baron Maupertuis, and the Netherland Sumatra Company, I never want to hear about them again. I could not integrate them into real life at all, despite weeks of research. The story they come from is the beginning of The Reigate Squires, of course.


End file.
